Morphing Module in ANSA
Aim: Learning what is Morphing, practising techniques of morphing and stating its uses in the industry.
Description: Morphing is a special technique in motion pictures, animations, and designing process that changes one image into another through a seamless transition.
More recently, morphing technique has become a significant tool of computer aided designers and graphics animators by providing an effective means of producing a seamless sequence of forms. It is used to create a smooth transition between two models by inserting a sufficient number of interpolated models between them. Especially without numerical inputs, morphing changes the design or shape and size of a component.
Industrial examples are the cars like Honda Brio and Honda Amaze. Honda had launched a compact Hatchback modek Brio in the market. They were now aiming at introducing a sedan model. In order to save time, money and energy required to built a whole new car, Honda extended the rear part of the Brio and made it like a sedan class car. This saved time and cost very much. This is how morphing is used in industry. Some more exapmles are the cars like Hyundai i10 and Accent, Maruti Suzuki Swift and Dezire, Ford Figo and Aspire, etc.
Using Morph Module in ANSA:
Morphing will be studied on the sheet metal component shown below.
First of all, topo is performed on the component and it is checked for geometric errors. Found errors are removed and a good geometry is set up for operation.
Go to Morph module. To perform morphing on a desired geometry, first select the option of 'Ortho' under Boxes:New:Ortho and select Geometry or FE Entities or Nodes as per requirement, and make a box selection on the desired part. This will draw a box aroud the part as shown in the image below.
To make changes on the part, select 'Move' option under Box Morphing:Move, select nodes on the box and move the geometry. I have moved the above geometry in the poitive Y-axis and this is how it is changed.
Other than moving in any direction, it can also be translated, transformed, scaled, rotated and aligned. Morphing can also distort the geoetry a little, but it is fixable.
When morphing is performed on any component, it can not be traced back to the original shape and size(except doing undo operation), especially when one has no knowledge about morphing.
Morphing process requires a lot of knowledge, idea and patience to work on a model. This gives engineer freedom to change the design upto any extent he wants, after which he can simulate and validate the results.
The ortho and split options are the best for beginner level in morphing. Below are some images of changes made to the sheet metal component provided in the challenge.
Conclusion: The term Morphing and its use is understood properly. Industrial applications of morphing are stated properly with examples. Different tools incorporated in ANSA for morphing are well illustarted in the report along with the images.