L6-1

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2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Solving FSI
Applications Using
ANSYS Mechanical and
CFX
Lecture 6

6-DOF Rigid Body Solver
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-2
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body FSI
CFX includes a 6-DOF rigid body solver
Fluid forces/torques on a body auto-calculated
Body response included in flow solution
Either via mesh motion or via immersed solid

Simplified FSI case where body does not change shape
under fluid load
Can make assumptions about its behaviour
Does not need the expense of a full structural simulation

FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-3
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Dynamics
Forces and torques acting on a rigid body can be
summed and assumed to act on/about the centre of mass

Chasles Theorem: The general displacement of a rigid
body is a linear motion of a origin point plus a rotation
around the origin point
Can separate translation and rotation
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-4
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Translation
Translational equation of motion, applied to Centre of
Mass




Discretized using implicit Newmark integration scheme
Default integration parameters give 2
nd
order accuracy
Advantage over previous explicit CEL implementation

Can add influence of external spring or external force to
F
F x
P
E = =
G
m
dt
d

G
x

= Acceleration about centre of mass
Ext Spring Aero
)] ( [ F x x F F E + E + = E
so
k mg
= Linear Momentum x P m =
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-5
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Rotation
Rotational equation of motion about Centre of Mass






Two methods of discretization available
Simo-Wong
[1]
(Default. Second order, iteratively conservative)
First Order Backward Euler
Can add influence of external torsion spring or external
torque to M
Ext
M
I
E = =
dt
d
dt
d
B
) ( e
B B B
B
dt
d
e e e
e

I I
I
+ =
) (
) (
1
B B B B
e e e I M I =

= Angular Momentum

Ext so Spring Aero

)] ( [ M M M E + E = u u k
B
= Moment of Inertia tensor
I
[1] Simo, J.C., Wong, K.K., Unconditionally Stable Algorithms for Rigid Body Dynamics that exactly Preserves
Energy and Momentum, Int. J. Num. Methods in Eng., vol. 31, 19-52 (1991)
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-6
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Creating a Rigid Body in CFX-Pre
Insert a Rigid Body into the Flow Analysis
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-7
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Basic Settings
Mass
Rigid body mass
Location
The 2D boundary region of the rigid body
Coord Frame
Must create a Coord Frame at the centre
of mass (based on the initial rigid body
position) and select here
Cannot constrain a body to rotate about
a point
Mass Moment of Inertia
Enter components for the Mass Moment
of Inertia tensor
See next slides
As calculated with respect to the rigid
body coordinate frame
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-8
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Mass Moment of Inertia Tensor
This tensor describes an objects resistance to changes in
its rotation rate



Its a symmetric tensor, so I
xy
= I
yx

Hence only 6 components are entered on the Basic Settings panel
I
xx
describes the moment of inertia around the x-axis
when the objects are rotated around the x-axis
Non-zero when you have rotation about the x-axis
I
xy
describes the moment of inertia around the y-axis
when the objects are rotated around the x-axis, etc
Non-zero when you have rotation about the x and y axis
(
(
(

=
zz zy zx
yz yy yx
xz xy xx
I I I
I I I
I I I
I
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-9
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Mass Moment of Inertia Tensor
For rotation about only the y-axis, the tensor simplifies to:



For rotation about the x and y axes we have:




See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia for
detailed background on mass moment of inertia
(
(
(

=
0 0 0
0 0
0 0 0
yy
I I
(
(
(

=
0 0 0
0
0
yy yx
xy xx
I I
I I
I
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-10
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Dynamics
External Forces / Torques
- Use Spring or Value option
- Spring:
- Set Origin coords and Spring Constant
- Value
- Enter Cartesian components (can use CEL
expressions)
Degrees of Freedom
Select Translational / Rotational DOF
Default is None need to set at least
one DOF
Enter Gravity Vector
Acts at the centre of mass as set by
Coord Frame
Should be consistent with Domain
gravity (if specified in the Domain)
Everything specified in Rigid Body
Coord Frame
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-11
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Initialization
All state variables defining rigid
body can be initialized in terms
of the rigid body coordinate
frame

Default behaviour is to use
Automatic
Assumes quiescent conditions
unless a previous solution is
provided to restart from

FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-12
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Mesh Motion
After creating the rigid body, set
mesh motion parameters on
boundaries, subdomains and/or
interfaces
Option = Rigid Body Solution
Rigid Body = <Location>
Motion Constraints
Can ignore Translations or
Rotations

The boundary that corresponds to the rigid body should clearly
move with the rigid body, without ignoring any motion
To maintain mesh quality, you may want other boundaries/interfaces
to move using only the translations/rotations from the RB solution
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-13
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Mesh Motion Example
Ship hull example
2-DOF
Rotation about y-axis
Translation along the z-
axis
A subdomain moves with
the rigid body so that
near-wall mesh quality
can be maintained
See EX4 in the examples
folder

FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-14
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Mesh Motion Example
Hull wall boundary mesh motion defined by the Rigid Body
Solution
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-15
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Mesh Motion Example
Subdomain mesh motion also defined by the Rigid Body
Solution
Hull and subdomain rotate and translate together as a rigid body
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-16
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Mesh Motion Example
A Domain Interface is used between the subdomain and the
rest of the domain
The subdomain side of the interface uses the same mesh
motion setting as the subdomain and hull
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-17
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Mesh Motion Example
The other side of the interface uses the Rigid Body Solution to
set the mesh motion, but Ignore Rotations is selected
The mesh slides at the domain interface so rotational motion is not
transmitted to the outer domain
Translational motion is passed and absorbed by the outer domain
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-18
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Mesh Motion Example
This example demonstrates
the preferred topology when
rotation about a single axis
is included

For rotation about multiple
axes surround the rigid body
with a sphere when
significant rotation occurs
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-19
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
CEL Access of Rigid Body Variables
Use the rbstate() CEL function to access rigid body variables
E.g. rbstate(Linear Velocity X)@RigidBodyObject
The returned values are with respect to the Global Coord Frame
Variables that can be accessed are:
Position X/Y/Z, Linear Velocity X/Y/Z, Linear Acceleration X/Y/Z,
Euler Angle X/Y/Z, Angular Velocity X/Y/Z,
Angular Acceleration X/Y/Z
If a component (X/Y/Z) is not provided the magnitude is returned,
except for Euler Angle which requires a component
A beta feature allows values to be returned in the rigid body
coordinate frame
E.g. rbstate(linacc x_Coord Name)@RigidBodyObject
where linacc x is the short form variable name. See the VARIABLES
file in .../ANSYS Inc/v130/CFX/etc to find the short form
names
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-20
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Solver Control
Solver Control > Rigid Body
Control
Update Frequency
Every Time Step
Explicit coupling between the rigid body
solution and the flow field. Lowest
computational cost, but weakest
coupling. Suitable for loosely coupled
cases; will be unstable for more tightly
coupled cases
Every Coefficient Loop / Iteration
Tighter coupling that is iteratively-implicit. Higher computational cost, but
more stable for large timestep use and cases with high virtual-mass (body-
mass ratio). May still fail the forces from the flow field dont get a chance
to stabilize after receiving the new rigid body position. Can use under-
relaxation (see later).
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-21
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Solver Control
Update Frequency (cont.)
General Coupling Control
The most robust approach; same
approach as stagger/coupling
iterations in 2-way FSI. Set the
number of Rigid Body updates to
perform per timestep. After each RB
update within a timestep, the flow
solver will perform the number of
coefficient loops set under Basic
Settings.
Under Internal Coupling Data
Transfer Control can set Under
Relaxation Factors and
Convergence Control
Available for Update Frequency
other than Every Timestep

FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-22
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Solver Control
Can adjust under relaxation for
forces & torques sent to the RB
solver and for mesh motion
received from the RB solver
External Force set via a Linear Spring
is not under-relaxed
Under relaxation is usually the first
choice to improve robustness and
is easy to use
Default under relaxation is 0.75

The default Simo Wong Integration
Method for Angular Momentum is
recommended

FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-23
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Monitor Plots
Default monitor plots are
created
Rigid Body Convergence,
Euler Angles & Position
Select under Monitors > Rigid
Body
Motion convergence is based
on the distance moved
compared to the last time the
RB solver was called
Force/Torque convergence is
based on the change in
force/torque divided by the
force/torque magnitude
See CFX-Pre Solver Control
doc for further details
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-24
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Monitor Plots
Can also access additional plots;
create a new monitor or right-click
to access Monitor Properties
Angular/Linear Acceleration and
Angular/Linear Velocity are
available in addition to the default
Position, Euler Angle and
Force/Motion Convergence plots
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-25
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Rigid Body Solution
FSI with ANSYS Mechanical and CFX
L6-26
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.
Release 13.0
December 2010
Customer Training Material
Limitations
Cant be combined with MFX 2-way FSI
No contact/collision modelling with walls or other rigid
bodies
Practically, this only matters for the Immersed Solid approach
since the mesh would fold prior to a collision
An immersed solid driven by 6-DOF has no problems moving
through a wall and outside the flow domain
Cant be used in rotating domains
General constraints cant be applied
Cant make a rigid body rotate about a point, other than its
center of mass