Strength and fatigue analysis wizard guides you to the results – Simcenter 3D 2306
Full integration of strength and fatigue with finite elements
Reducing the burden on durability experts
Strength and fatigue analysis can be complicated, but tools that can help now exist. Let us join again the former young engineer and now team leader Isambard. The last time we met him, he learnt about the simplicity of creating strength analysis in Simcenter3D.
He could install several workflows for different groups and applications, starting from the existing templates in Simcenter3D for different strength and fatigue methodologies. Those are in daily use now.
Still, he sees possibilities to improve: Some users in the company provide him with feedback. They report that the workflows work fine, and one gets the needed results, but the Simcenter Specialist Durability tool still feels like it is only for experts, which means it does not get used as often as it could help. Many colleagues only use it when they need to sign off their designs.
Isambard learnt that the tool is already useful when looking at stress results since it adds the influence of the material strength to the stress result and immediately gives it a meaningful result, namely the degree of utilization the current design has.
Getting involved
Discussing this with his Siemens Peer, he learns that there will be a new tool, The Strength and Durability Wizard. He is also invited to get an early view of the tool via The Early Access Program. The following is the report he made for his next team meeting.
The new tool is a straightforward guided tool that automatically connects to existing finite element results and pre-selects the active solution when there are several. But furthermore, it also preselects a load type based on the solution, i.e., what kind of load cycle to analyze: a block load for single linear results – a transient series of the results for non-linear results. Therefore, due to these preselections, the user usually only has to check this step. Tooltips at each step directly support the workflow.
The analysis type is chosen in the second step, and the user can conduct strength, stress-life, or strain-life analysis. Preselection is also used here so that the method parameters are prepared.
Then the material can be checked, or fatigue parameters estimated. All that is required from the user is that they press the solve button to make the postprocessing available on the same page.
At the end of his report, Isambard shows he can reduce his workflow descriptions to a few mouse clicks, and he is confident Non-regular users will feel comfortable with the workflow as well.
Useful Features
As we discovered in the previous blogs, Isambard is an inquisitive engineer. He found many other possibilities with this wizard; since his team was interested, he shared the following with them.
The tool is completely integrated into the Simcenter Specialist Durability tool. This means a durability solution is created in the simulation file once an analysis with the wizard is created and performed.
This can now be edited by both the Wizard and the full durability tool.
So, we can easily enhance a strength analysis to a fatigue analysis using the wizard. Simcenter not only remembers that a given solution was created by the wizard such that you can edit it with the wizard, but also cloned solutions inherit this property.
Hence with just a few clicks, that are mostly to change the analysis type and start the solve again.
We can get all the results and can analyze the fatigue behavior. We even can use our in-house postprocessing templates automatically.
And as the wizard is wholly integrated into the full durability environment, we can also start from a wizard-based analysis and add all the features that the durability tool offers.
Isambard was very impressed by this update when talking to him; he reported, “This will save me much time when creating new templates and workflows.”
For those of you that pride yourself on the reports you provide, you will be pleased to know that the results produced are in the same format as the durability results. This means that you can now use the complete post-processing tool set. Furthermore, an image created in the wizard is automatically created in the post-processing scenario.
More usability for the specialist tool as well
Once back in his familiar environment as a specialist durability engineer, Isambard detects numerous minor but beneficial enhancements. Playing with the software, he found the new templates for selecting function results most helpful. This works similarly to the definition and selection of the analysis templates and is useful for his daily work. He particularly likes the valuable set of predefined templates. “This will save me from more mouse clicks and shorten my workflows for the different groups I work with. I may even rediscover coffee breaks.”
Closing thoughts
That night Isambard decided
- To never miss Siemens update announcements and anything else that may get him access to the latest updates.
- To get the newest version of Simcenter3D installed across the company as soon as possible
Disclaimer: Isambard is a fictional character we use to help explain the benefits of updates. No identification with actual persons is intended or should be inferred.
