Vibration isolators are a critical part of component design when shock and transportation loads (such as MIL-STD-810) are involved. Modeling springs and isolators in Ansys Mechanical involves simulating the behavior of these components under various loading conditions to predict their response and performance.
Ansys Mechanical provides a comprehensive set of tools to accurately model these components and to perform detailed analyses, including linear and nonlinear simulations, dynamic analyses, and frequency response analyses. Let’s look at using a General Joint to model a wire rope isolator as an example.
Here is a typical wire rope isolator data sheet (courtesy of Ansys):
We will use a simplified model of two plates for this scenario:
- Under Connections, insert a Joint. Set the Type to General. Set all Translation and Rotation to Fixed.
- Select the top face of the lower plate to be the Reference and the bottom face of the upper plate to be the Mobile selection.
- In the Connections tab, select the Worksheet
- This brings up a table of Stiffness Coefficients and Damping Coefficients. Right click on a value to change between constant value and tabular data.
- Include a Fixed Support and a Force or other appropriate boundary condition. Pay attention to sign convention and your axes directions. It may be helpful to set your coordinate system to match the data of your isolator(s).
- Large Deflection: On
- Insert a Total Deflection and a Force Reaction in Results to evaluate the behavior of this General Joint. From here you can take this joint type and apply it to complex models, knowing that it should work as intended.
For a more detailed look at modeling isolators in ANSYS Mechanical, visit the Ansys Learning Hub for the webinar “Modeling of Vibration Isolators” within the Making Better Applications series in the Structures Building.
Rand Simulation can also help your team with consulting services, personalized training, and with the purchase of Ansys simulation software. Contact us to get started!
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