Learning Forum

[AndrewZCalSol]

I am a colleague of Michael Jia and am working as part of the simulations subteam for our club's (CalSol) upcoming solar racing vehicle. In particular, I have been focused on running static impact cases for the structures portion of the car which, this year, is almost entirely constructed from composite materials.

As a relatively new user of ANSYS, I thought it would be best to reach for help!

If possible, I would like to ask about few issues I have come across while working in ANSYS ACP:

1) In ACP Pre, our model exists as a surface and solid body model--the entire car, except the rollcage (imported as solid bodies), is made out of composite sandwich panels (imported as surface bodies for layup purposes). The model can be seen in this screenshot.

[April Wang]

Hi The images you inserted cannot be viewed. If possible, could you update the post.
Maybe I'm in the wrong direction, but based on my limited understanding, here is some information.
If the ACP model is transfer as Solid composites data to Static Structural analysis (see below image), the original base surface structure of the composites is gone in the static structural analysis. All of the surfaces of the solid model are treated as normal real surface and automatic contact uses these surfaces to detect contact.

If the ACP model is transferred as Shell composite data to Static Structural analysis, than the composites is still treated as 2-D shell element instead of solids, so automatic contact used the original surface to create contact. However, you can adjust the tolerance in contact detection so that even there's a gap between the two surfaces, contact can be automatically created between them.

April

[AndrewZCalSol]

Thank you for the reply! That is great information to know.
Sorry that the pictures couldn't send. Here is my attempt to repeat the post with images as attached files.
1) In ACP Pre, our model exists as a surface and solid body model--the entire car, except the rollcage(imported as solid bodies), is made out of composite sandwichpanels (imported as surface bodies for layup purposes). The model can be seen in this screenshot.

As seen in the below screenshot, to accommodatefor the fact that these surfaces will be extruded (red arrows showing direction) to the appropriate layup thickness, there are many gaps (circled in green) at locations where different panels have to interface. There are also finger joints (circled in green) at these locations.

My question is, when these panels are extruded, willANSYSunderstand to create contact bonds on the new surfaces created from the layup extrusion?In other words, is there firm bonding contact at all surfaces around the finger joints (shown in boxed colors below. This screenshot was taken in Static Structural)?