General Mechanical

General Mechanical

Topics related to Mechanical Enterprise, Motion, Additive Print and more.

Springs in modal analysis.

    • javat33489
      Subscriber

      Hi all.
      I calculated the vibration isolators for the frame of the pumping unit.
      I used modal + harmonic analysis.
      1. I used modal + harmonic analysis with hard termination.
      2. I used modal + harmonic analysis with springs that simulate vibration isolators.
      I used the combin14 snippet and set the stiffness in three XYZ planes:
      ET,_sid,14
      KEYOPT,_sid,1,1
      R,_sid,196,637,1122
      REAL,_sid


      Everything went well. I just have one question. In modal analysis with springs, the first two modes show 0; with rigid embedding, this does not happen. This is fine? The mesh is good everywhere.

    • peteroznewman
      Subscriber

      Hi Javat,

      Animate the first and second modes. What is the principal direction of movement?  That is the direction where there is zero stiffness.

      To eliminate all rigid body motion, you need a minimum of stiffness in 6 directions, and that is only sufficient if the directions are not redundant.

      For example, if you have a frame that is attached to ground at 3 points, and ground is the X-Y plane with Z vertical, the first point can have stiffness in 3 directions (X, Y, Z).  The second point must be separated from the first point along the X axis and needs stiffness in the Y and Z directions.  The third point must be separated from the first point along the Y axis and needs stiffness in the Z direction. This is the minimum to avoid a zero frequency mode.

      You can have springs with stiffness in 3 directions on 3 or 4 attachment points, that is fine and may increase the frequencies of some modes.

      COMBIN14 is a 1D spring element, so to get stiffness in 3 directions, you need 3 springs. KEYOP(1) = 1 is for nonlinear damping. To get no rigid body modes, you would need 6 springs oriented in the correct directions as described above. If you wanted stiffness in 3 directions at 4 attachement points, you would need 12 COMBIN14 springs.

      Use one COMBIN250 at each attachment point which is a spring element that can have stiffness in 6 DOF (X, Y, Z, Rx, Ry, Rz).

      • javat33489
        Subscriber

        Thanks for your answer sir!
        1. Do I understand correctly that if I use COMBIN250, most likely there will be no zero mods?

        2. Please tell me what the APDL code for COMBIN250 will look like?

      • javat33489
        Subscriber

        Sir, help please

      • javat33489
        Subscriber

        Sir can I use this APDL code?

        ET,_sid, 250
        KEYOPT,_sid,1,1
        R,_sid,196,637,1122
        REAL,_sid

    • javat33489
      Subscriber

      Help please

    • javat33489
      Subscriber

      I need help please

Viewing 3 reply threads
  • The topic ‘Springs in modal analysis.’ is closed to new replies.