ACT Extension: Energy plot

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Energy plot chart

Description

The extension allows evaluation of the time histories of the energies like:

  • stiffness energy
  • kinetic energy
  • damping energy
  • work done by external load
  • artificial energy due to hourglass control/drill stiffness or due to contact stabilization damping
  • artificial energy due to nonlinear stabilization.

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Demonstration video (version 1.2)

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The ACT binary extension Energy Plot can be downloaded and used for your own purposes.

Current release

Energy Plot (2.1) (9.5.2022)

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ANSYS compatible versions: ANSYS 2021 R1, ANSYS 2021 R2 and 2022 R1

What's new:

  • ANSYS 2022 R1 is now supported.

Any comments or suggestions are welcome. Please do not hesitate to contact us.

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Version History

Energy Plot (1.1) (18.10.2019)

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First stable release

ANSYS compatible versions: 2019 R2, 2019 R3

Energy Plot (1.2) (27.1.2020)

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ANSYS compatible versions: 2019 R2, 2019 R3, 2020 R1

What's new:

  • Support of ANSYS 2020 R1
  • Minor bug fixes

Energy Plot (1.3) (15.7.2020)

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ANSYS compatible versions: 2019 R2, 2019 R3, 2020 R1, 2020 R2

What's new:

  • Support of ANSYS 2020 R2

Energy Plot (1.4) (12.2.2021)

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ANSYS compatible versions: 2019 R2, 2019 R3, 2020 R1, 2020 R2, 2021 R1

What's new:

  • Support of ANSYS 2021 R1

Energy Plot (2.0) (15.9.2021)

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ANSYS compatible versions: ANSYS 2021 R1 and 2021 R2

What's new:

  • ANSYS 2021 R2 is now supported.
  • Data are read directly from the RST file.

Documentation

The extension provides the time history data using of APDL commands which are added to the ANSYS input deck (ds.dat). The following APDL commands are used internally:

  • TRNOPT (only the Transient Structural analysis) with option EngCalc set to YES (TRNOPT,FULL,,,,,HHT,,0,YES),
  • OUTRES with the option VENG (OUTRES,VENG,ALL).

The energy data are exported using command ENERSOL. The following energy data are available:

  • SENE Potential energy (stiffness energy)
  • KENE Kinetic energy
  • DENE Damping energy
  • WEXT Work done by external load
  • AENE Artificial energy due to hourglass control/drill stiffness or due to contact stabilization damping
  • STEN Artificial energy due to nonlinear stabilization

Setup

To activate the energy plots, it is necessary to insert the object Energy Setup via the toolbar (see Figure 1) or via context menu into the outline tree of the desired structural or transient analysis.

Toolbar for inserting object into outline tree

Figure 1: Toolbar

The object Energy Setup has the following options in its Details View:

Setup options of the object Energy Setup

Figure 2: Setup options of the object Energy Setup

Viewing Results

To review the results, insert the object Energy Post via the toolbar or via the context menu into solution section of the outline tree. In the Details View of this object, you can choose which energies you want to display and customize the options of the chart, see Figure 3.

Setup options of the object Energy Setup

Figure 3: Setup options of object Energy Post

When the Energy Post object is activated, the chart and the table with the energy data are shown in the Worksheet and the Data View sub-windows, see Figure 4.

Chart and tabular data for displaying the energies

Figure 4: Chart and tabular data for displaying the energies.

Restrictions and Limitations (related to version 1.4)

  • Currently only Static Structural and Transient Structural (with Full method) analyses are supported.
  • If you want to use command TRNOPT in an APDL Command Block, it is necessary to set the parameter EngCalc to YES.
  • If you want to change your OUTRES definitions in an APDL Command Block it is necessary to use OUTRES,VENG,ALL.
  • If the analysis was not finished due to non-convergence or stopped the post-processing part will not be executed and the energy plot will not be available. If you still want to evaluate energies you can insert APDL Commands in the Solution object with following content:

/COM, **************************************************
FINISH
/POST26
*GET,enerStepsCount,ACTIVE,0,SET,NSET
*DIM,enerValues,array,enerStepsCount,7


ENERSOL, 2,SENE,,SENE ! Potential energy (stiffness energy)
ENERSOL, 3,KENE,,KENE ! Kinetic energy
ENERSOL, 4,DENE,,DENE ! Damping energy
ENERSOL, 5,WEXT,,WEXT ! Work done by external load
ENERSOL, 6,AENE,,AENE ! Artificial energy due to hourglass control/drill stiffness or due to contact stabilization damping
ENERSOL, 7,STEN,,STEN ! Artificial energy due to nonlinear stabilization

vget,enerValues(1,1),1,,
vget,enerValues(2,2),2,,
vget,enerValues(3,3),3,,
vget,enerValues(4,4),4,,
vget,enerValues(5,5),5,,
vget,enerValues(6,6),6,,
vget,enerValues(7,7),7,,

*CFOPEN,'outEnersol','txt',' ' 
*VWRITE,enerValues(1,1),enerValues(1,2),enerValues(1,3),enerValues(1,4),enerValues(1,5),enerValues(1,6),enerValues(1,7)
(7E16.8) 
*CFCLOS 

enerStepsCount=
enerValues=

finish
/post1
/COM, **************************************************

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