Ansys Tips

In Ansys Mechanical, there are a lot of drop-down selections. Instead of clicking on the down arrow, try double-clicking on the current selection. The selection would cycle to what's next on the list. This is convenient when I want to create multiples of an object (e.g. contacts or bolt pretension) with the only difference being the named selection. After setting up the first object as I like it, I then Right-Mouse-Button "Duplicate" and double-click on the named selection to cycle through the named selection. This of course only works if the named selection was already created as part of the  workflow that is named sequentially (e.g. bolt1, bolt2, bolt3... (or) fric1a, fric1b, fric2a, fric2b...) Double-clicking also works for a slew of drop-downs in Analysis Settings. p/s: Creating an ACT  script would be more efficient but the conventional/lazy way above could be faster if future projects would rarely need it.

Spring that Imitates Static/Dynamic Friction Sometimes, a simple linear spring is not adequate. In tough jobs where a spring with a built-in gap or force saturation is needed,  COMBIN40 is the spring of choice. It could behave similarly to a one dimensional friction contact like in  Wikipedia : Static to Dynamic Friction In the animation above, the spring is actually two COMBIN40 springs in parallel. When done just right, they could imitate the behavior of static to dynamic friction forces: Spring Forces To do it in Mechanical, here's the tip! Under Geometry, you'll have to change the Element Control setting to Manual. This allows the spring element to be modified. Element Control Next, two identical springs are added (parallel springs). The snippet for the first spring: Spring #1 Snippet The second spring snippet: Spring #2 Snippet The snippet has two lines of code. The first line changes the element to COMBIN40, the second line d...