COE : Forums : Importing catia to ansys

Mike Clark

Importing catia to ansys

February 20, 2013 05:36 AM

Hi all,

Basically, I am frustrated with having to constantly re-select faces in ansys after a geometry change in catia. Even after a minor geometry change, ansys mostly fails to maintain the selected faces. So now I am looking for a way to define the faces in catia to be imported as named selections in ansys. In ansys there are two options for importing catia geometry:

- Reader

- CADNexus (plugin)

The reader method is basic and supports publication in catia, but you can soon run into difficulties when trying to publish multiple faces.

The cadnexus plugin supports publication, colours and layers, but each have their limitations.

- Colour: You would have to define an rgb value for each set of faces, and list those in ansys import options.

- Layers: This seems to be the best option but I am unable to assign a single or set of faces to a layer. I find the body is also assigned.

Does anyone else have this problem? Anyone worked out a reliable method of pre-defining faces for named selections?

CATIA V5 R18 / Ansys 14 / CADNexus 3.15

Cheers, Mike

Greg Albrechtsen

RE: Importing catia to ansys

February 21, 2013 10:44 AM (in response to Mike Clark)

Hey Mike,

I'm not familiar with the ANSYS pulgin only CATIA Analysis and AFC. However, there are several things I do in my models to make the process more streamlined. Namely, I use a "template" approach. Since you understand pulblications, you might be halfway there. In CATIA Analysis there is an item called FEA Group- surface group by neighboorhood.

When I want to create an FE entity related to a publication of many surfaces what I do is: extract said surfaces, create JOIN of surfaces, publish the JOIN, then in CATIA Analysis attached a "surface group by neighboor hood" to the JOIN publication. Long winded I know. But what this then does is group all the nodes/elements within the surface group tolerance value and assigns them the appropriate value.

Im not sure if "method" can be recreated in ANSYS. You mught check if it has an "FE group" tool. I do know that the FEMUtilities by DPS does support export of CATIA ANALYSIS groups for ANSYS (just another thought).

Cheers,
Greg

Mike Clark

RE: Importing catia to ansys

February 22, 2013 04:24 AM (in response to Greg Albrechtsen)

Thanks Greg I appreciate your response. I will look into your suggestion...

Mike