Learning Forum

[sam45]

Hello,

 

I created a truss composed of cables and link/truss elements that take compression only. then i tried to apply a bolt pretension to my cables. however i get the following error:

THE PRETENSION LOAD WAS NOT ABLE TO BE APPLIED.  MAKE SURE THE LOAD    
 WAS NOT APPLIED TO A HOLE AND THAT THE LOAD IS NOT APPLIED MORE THAN   
 ONCE PER SURFACE.

I am new to using bolt pretension; I don't know what I am doing wrong. I created my bolt pretension using 3-step analysis where I applied the load in step 1 and locked it in steps 2 and 3. I selected my cable using body selection. I used iterative for Solver Type. 

I also tried using INISTATE command; the error remains the same.

any help as to how to resolve this error would be appreciated.

thanks

[peteroznewman]

What is your geometry, just line bodies?  Can you post an image?

[sam45]

Yes - circular cross section beams which i then defined as cables or link/truss elements in mechanical

[peteroznewman]

Bolt Pretension is available for Beam elements meshed on line bodies. I don't know if it works for LINK180 elements for a Truss model.

[sam45]

I changed my element to beams just to see if it would work but i get the same error

[peteroznewman]

What version of ANSYS are you using?

[sam45]

2019R3

[peteroznewman]

If there is only one element along the beam length, then the solver cannot apply a Bolt Pretension load. It needs nodes between the ends of the beam to use in the Bolt Pretension method.

Here is the deformation after a Bolt Pretension has be applied, the mesh is shown on the right.