Aircraft Structural Integrity

ANSYS Submodelling

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Learning Outcomes
Intro
These slides are to take you into a little more detail regarding more
involved modelling strategies to extend the usability of the software.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Intro
Recap

Last week we delved a little deeper into the software and started to
consider local behaviour and the presence of singularities.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Intro
Submodelling

In this session we will start to consider how to assess more complex

structures, for any kind of simulation.

A. Submodelling Overview

B. Submodelling Procedure

C. Tutorial / Workshop Task - Submodelling

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Overview

We have incredibly capable CAD packages, and are now able to input
more (and more accurate) geometry than ever before into the models.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Overview

Current trends in simulation show an increased need for the

computation of large, complicated models

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Overview

We have the option of reducing this

geometry (adding remote BCs etc.) but
how do we know we are capturing the
inputs correctly?

And where do we curtail the model?

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Overview

And yet if we leave the geometry undisturbed, we are quickly

running into hundreds of thousands, if not millions of elements.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Overview

You may then discover particular ROIs that require further analysis.
But how do you refine these specific areas when you already have so
many elements?

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Overview

Local meshing control may be the answer, but there are better(?)
tools available to us.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Overview
Submodelling is one option. This is proposed by Ansys to be a
‘reduction technique‘ – which they mainly promote to increase the
speed of solutions and permit faster design variations.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Process
Normally a geometric or mesh-based function of FEA. We will start
from a coarse solution and increase accuracy only within a ROI.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Process
As discussed in the singularity slides, the coarse model can often
provide us with accurate deformations but will equally often have
inaccurate stress and strain information.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Process
The more refined model(s) produced during submodelling can then
provide us with more accurate stresses within the ROI(s)

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Process
In order for this to function, we need to undertake ‘results mapping’
(displacements) from the coarse to the fine solution.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Process

Solving two models can

be faster than solving a
very detailed one

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Uses

From basic solid to finer solid...

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Uses
From solid, to basic shell (find deformation), to finer solid (stresses)...

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Uses
From solid, to basic shell (find deformation), to finer solid (stresses)...

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure
Submodeling is available for structural and thermal analysis types with
solid geometry.

One of the key concepts

in submodeling is the
designation of the “cut
boundaries” defining the
submodel.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure
The displacements from the coarse model are mapped to the cut
boundary locations on the submodel from the corresponding locations
on the full model.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure

Be careful!

if the cut boundaries are too close to the stress concentrations the
accuracy of the submodel can be degraded.

A results comparison can be used to verify the cut boundary location.

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure

First!

Solve your global model before

starting to build a submodel

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure

Create a new standalone Static Structural

model

Connect the solution from the full model to

the setup of the sub model

open the sub model geometry and import

your .stl file

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure

Place cut boundaries in your model to

define the region you want to sub model

Insert a new plane and offset it to coincide

with the cut you want

Slice based on the cut

Suppress all but the sub model bodies and

save as an .stp

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure

Open up the model and check you have the

correct region.

Apply a mesh, remembering that this is

going to require refinement and logging as
before.

Note you now have a submodelling option

in Static Structural

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure

Right click the submodelling button and

insert a cut boundary constraint

Select all the cut faces from your submodel

that need to tie up with the full model

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Submodelling
Procedure

Click the import loads icon and Ansys

should generate the load case from the
remote displacements in your original
model

The model is now ready to solve and refine

to improve your results

Aircraft Structural Integrity

Aircraft Structural Integrity
Submodelling
Checklist

How do the results compare to your original

model?

Is the stress distribution reasonable?

Is it converged?

What are the key regions of interest and

what are the values there?

Could you further reduce the geometry?

Aircraft Structural Integrity