Orthotropic material properties for complex geometry

[GeorgeEllwood]

Hello,
I would like to give some complex geometry orthotropic material properties. The best way I've found to model the geometry is to create spline and then create an area at the start of the spline and use the VDRAG and then VSWEEP commands to build the geometry and then mesh. Hopefully the attached image shows how it's done, the area has been highlighted in yellow, this is then dragged along the spline. The material properties in the plane of the area that is dragged are different to those along the drag line.
I'm struggling to work out how to get the material properties to follow the spline. I've had very limited experience using them many year ago but then I had to define a new coordinate system for each different element, in that case I only needed 3 or 4 coordinate systems but in this example I think I'll need one per element.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
George

 

[harishamid]

Why dont you definie Anisotropic material for that specific volume? You can define properties in a 6 x 6 matrix in ANSYS. I dont how many elements you plan to use, but defining a matrix for each element is generally unrealistic.

Haris

 

[GeorgeEllwood]

Hi Haris, thanks for the suggestion I'm not quite sure how to do that though for my geometry. The attachment on my first post shows the geometry in question. It's basically a helix with a rectangular cross section. The material properties in the plane of the area are different to those in the direction of the line also shown on the drawing.
I'm trying to model thermal conduction (initially maybe thermal stress later) in a helical coil of insulated wire. The wire follows the helical path shown in the drawing, in the direction of the wire the thermal conduction is very good, however in the other two directions due the insulation of the wire the thermal conduction is poor, several orders of magnitude lower than along the wire.
Thanks
George

 

[GeorgeEllwood]

I've added another drawing that hopefully is clearer. On the left it shows the insulated wire in the helical coil, on the right it shows just the wire on it's own. I don't want to have to model the individual wires and insulation because that would be difficult to model and would require too many elements and take a long time to solve. I've already calculated the average thermal conductivity in the wire direction and normal to the wire direction which is dominated by the insulation. I would now to like to apply these to the helical geometry. Any ideas?
Kind regards
George