Week 8

Objective: To understand different morphing techniques and applications of morphing in various industries. Apply appropriate morphing technique on the given component.

Morphing:  

The morphing of systems which include adaptive structures can require the interaction of several disciplines including the design of the structure, actuation, sensors and control and understanding of phenomenon such as fluid structure interaction in the case of aerodynamic devices.

The ability to automatically morph an existing mesh to conform to geometry modifications is a necessary capability to enable rapid prototyping of design variations.

Component and full system level FE/CFD models (such as automotive vehicle crash, NVH and durability models) can be morphed to fit target design features such as styling lines, sections, proportions etc. precisely. The use of several functions can be used in order to reshape a CFD mesh (surface and volume) and create variations of the initial model very fast and easily.

A wide variety of morphing techniques such as control block (lower and higher order), direct parabolic, spherical, polycube and field based morphing are available to address varied applications.

An extensive set of automated and interactive tools to create ‘control blocks’ for assembly level morphing is available.

Typical automotive morphing scenarios such as morphing to match styling, upper body to carry over under body matching, morphing sedan to station wagon or SUV etc. can be executed rapidly.

ANSA encompasses a full – fledged Morphing menu which is completely integrated with ANSA’s interface and doesn’t require any additional module installations or licenses. The functions of the Morphing menu can be used to efficiently re-shape both FE and/or Geometry based models.

 

Different methods of morphing in ANSA are:

Domain (Box) Morphing:

Domain or Box Morphing is preformed via boxes that are created around a particular part or assembly that the user intends to morph. The movement of the Morphing boxes control points defines the morphing operations on the entities inside the Morph box. This type of Morphing can be applied to both FE and Geometry based models.

Direct Morphing:

ANSA’s Direct morphing features gives the user the ability to efficiently modify a part locally without having to create Morphing boxes. This method is extremely useful in creating local modifications on single parts. Creation of depressions, surface fitting certain FE part features to new target geometry, moving selected features along the contour of a surface and also the ability to freeze (rigid) elements during the morphing process are some of the direct morphing abilities.

Parametric Morphing:

 The desired morphing actions can be saved as parameters which can be accessed in batch mode. Users can enforce desired shape changes by changing numerical input value for the appropriate parameter. This method of morphing is highly utilized for coupling of the morphing operations to an external optimizer. The scripting capability can be used in conjunction with ANSA’s parametric morphing functionality to deliver faster DOE models.

Geometry Morphing:

ANSA brings to the CAE world its ‘one – of – a kind’ tool for CAD geometry morphing. This pioneering concept allows the user to utilize the inventory of all the familiar FE morphing functions to perform equivalent operations in a CAD environment on geometric entities.

 

Procedure: import the given component in ANSA.

The first step is to proceed with the geometry clean-up of the component.

In order to check for the geometrical errors, checks manager is used. The errors present in the geometry are fixed using the auto fix option and various tools available under the faces, cons and surfaces tabs.

In order to proceed with the free box morphing, first we need to create the morphing box. The morphing box is created at the nodes where it is required.

Under the morphing module, select the new option under the boxes tab and then select the ortho option and geometry option. After this, the region where morphing is to be done is selected and applied.

Splits are made in the box by using the split option then parametric under the boxes tab and specifying the value.

Now under the box morphing option, select the move option and select the box to be moved in the specified direction.

Move the geometry by selecting the required control points by using move option.

Conclusion: The various applications and aspects of morphing used in the industries were discussed. Morphing technique was applied on the given component in ANSA.