Understanding When to Take Advantage of Symmetry Using Ansys Mechanical — Lesson 3

In this lesson, we will show when to take advantage of symmetry. If the geometry, material orientation, loading, and expected response all exhibit symmetry about the same planes, we can take advantage of planar symmetry and only model a portion of the actual structure to reduce analysis run time and memory requirements. Using Symmetry Regions in Ansys Mechanical can give more accurate and more computationally efficient solutions. However, the Symmetry Region tool should not be used when all four symmetry requirements are not satisfied, such as in modal or linear buckling analyses where non-symmetric modes are needed to be calculated.

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Chapters -

00:00 Introduction
02:11 General rule for a planar symmetry boundary condition
02:46 Defining the Symmetry Region for Planar Symmetry
04:46 Visual expansion of symmetry results to show a “full” model for the planar case
05:28 Understanding the conditions when Symmetry Region shouldn’t be used
08:55 How to Split bodies for symmetry in Ansys Discovery?
11:20 How to connect line bodies with solid bodies via Contact Region in Ansys Mechanical?
12:20 How to create and align local Coordinate Systems based on geometry?
13:21 How to create a Symmetry Region in Ansys Mechanical?
14:14 How to define Bolt Pretension load in Ansys Mechanical?
16:20 How to visually expand symmetry model results to show a “full” model for a sector?