Learning Forum

[180596]

Hi,

I have a question and want to ask for help. 

I want to use ANSYS Mechanical to perform a modal analysis of a composite material structure.

The structure is a hollow cylinder with a height of 101.2 mm, an inner diameter of 250 mm, and an outer diameter of 300 mm. It consists of 400 alternating layers of 0.25 mm thick steel and 0.003 mm thick epoxy along the height of the cylinder. All layers are bonded together with bonded contact.

Besides using the volume averaging method to homogenize the composite material, is there a specific setting for simulating periodic structures, such that drawing only one layer of steel and epoxy is sufficient for analysis?

Thank you！

Wei-Hao Chang

 

[Chandra Sekaran]

May be you can try modeling one half layer of steel - a full layer of epoxy - another half layer of steel. Then apply symmetry boundary (or couple the nodes) condition? This assumes the end effects are not important. 

[Chandra Sekaran]

Forgot that this is a modal analysis. So you really cannot do that. I think you may need to model the whole height. May be you can use cyclic symmetry in the theta direction. 

[180596]

Hi Chandra,

I'll try that; thank you for the suggestion！

Wei-Hao