ANSYS WB14 Connections

[jxsnyder]

I am building a model of a structure that houses a monorail crane. I built the structure as a line model and want to model the loading of the crane as a pendulum. I added a node for the crane location on the monorail beam, added a line segment to represent the height of the load on the crane, and applied a dead load on the crane line segment. How do I create a pin style connection/contact for the line segment connection to the monorail beam? I know that WB will create bonded contacts when creating parts but I want to make sure I can represent the loading as a pin style connection.

 

[rickfischer51]

Delete the bonded contact and add a joint. High-light Connections, right click,and pick joint. Make sure you get the coordinate system right.

Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

 

[jxsnyder]

When I modeled the monorail crane beam I created three nodes: two for the bc's of the beam and the third for where I would add the "pendulum". The beams and the crane cable were modeled as line bodies. I went ahead and deleted the bonded contact and created the joint at the third node. I chose "revolute" as type, selected the two crane beam sections as the "reference", and the crane cable as the "mobile". The behaviors were left as rigid and I left the torsional stiffness and damping at zero. When I go to solve, I get an error and a warning:

1) "The solver engine was unable to converge on a solution for the nonlinear problem as constrained. Please see the Troubleshooting section of the Help System for more information."

and

2) The unconverged solution (identified as Substep 9999999) is outpot for analysis debug purposes. Results at this time should not be used for any other purpose."

 

[rickfischer51]

It's hard to visualize what you are doing, but it sounds like the model is underconstrained. If a pendulum is attached with a revolute joint, it would be free to rotate around the joint unless constraints are added. Try turning on weak springs. Also, make sure nonlinear geometry is on.

Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory