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MEASURING FORCE ON A POINT MASS IN ANSYS

MECHANICAL (WORKBENCH) STATIC AND HARMONIC
ANALYSIS
Posted in Tips & Tricks - Finite Element Analysis (FEA) articles (/tips-and-tricks/fea-articles)

A Point Mass (a remote mass), can be added to an ANSYS FEA model to

include the load due to mass that does not stiffen a structure, but that is
important to capturing inertial loads such as those due to gravity, rotation about
an axis, or dynamics.

ANSYS Mechanical (Workbench) supports addition of a point mass that is

associated with one or more faces. The point mass will load the associated
faces. Face behavior can be set to deformable or rigid. It may be of interest to
measure the forces on the point mass. The purpose of this article is to indicate how the forces can be
measured in Static and in Harmonic Analysis by including an APDL Commands Object in the Outline.

Workbench Setup

A Point Mass can be added to a Workbench model, positioned in space, and associated with chosen surfaces.
The surface behavior can be set to Rigid or Deformable. When the Deformable choice is made, the Point Mass
will move in an average sense with the associated surfaces, and the surfaces can thermally expand and flex
without local constraint. The associated surfaces should usually be free of constraints and other loads.
 Figure 2: Adding a Point Mass to a Workbench Mechanical Model

The Point Mass can be promoted to be located at a Remote Point in recent versions of Workbench:

Figure 3: Promoting a Point Mass to a Remote Point

Advantages of having a Remote Point promotion for a Point Mass include identification of the node located at
the Point Mass. This can be done with an APDL Commands Object at the Remote Point of interest:

Figure 4: Identify the Node at the Point Mass

It is also possible to find out the Real number for the contact elements associated with the Remote Point. If
recorded in a parameter, this could make is possible to identify the contact elements later in other APDL
Commands Objects. In the above Figure 4, the node number at the Point Mass (Remote Point) has been
recorded as the parameter mymass, and will be used later.
In the present example, the surface where forces are to be measured is identified by a Named Selection. It
should be the same surface as was used for the Point Mass (and therefore the Remote Point). This Named
Selection, called Face_Selection in this example, will be used in later Commands Objects. An alternative
approach could be to identify the Real number of the Remote Point, as mentioned above, in order to find the
contact surface in a later Commands Object.

Figure 5: Surface of Interest Identified

Static analysis results in forces and moments on the surfaces associated with a Point Mass, as transferred from
the Point Mass. In Figure 6 below, contents of a postprocessing Commands Object are illustrated. A result is
loaded with the SET command, nodes on the surface of interest are selected with the CMSEL command using
the Named Selection (component) for the face, an FSUM command sums forces on the selected nodes, and a
*GET command retrieves the force result of interest. The parameter my_force takes on the value of force in
the Y direction, and reports it as an output parameter in Workbench Mechanical because it starts with the
Output Search Prefix my_. The Commands Object ends with an ALLSEL command so that other
postprocessing work can commence with all entities selected.

Figure 6: Force on Point Mass

Other attempts to retrieve force on the Point Mass did not succeed,
as illustrated in Figure 7 on the right for the Remote Point associated
with the Point Mass. This absence of a result exists even when an
OUTRES,ALL,ALL commands object was included prior to the
SOLVE.

 Figure 7: Force Reaction Returns Zeros

Harmonic analysis results in real and imaginary numbers in the result, which imply amplitude and phase in the
response. We would like to examine the amplitude of the force on the Point Mass. This, too, can be done via an
APDL Commands Object. Prior to SOLVE, an OUTRES command was needed to make enough information
available for the force to be measured. The Analysis Settings object did not provide enough control to do this.

Figure 8: OUTRES Commands Object was Needed Prior to SOLVE

Once SOLVE has executed, a Postprocessing Commands Object can report the force:
 Figure 9: APDL Commands Object Reports Forces on Point Mass

The above Figure 9 APDL commands object is longer than

necessary. It retrieves forces WITHOUT the HRCPLX command, and
explores the consequences of changing arguments of the FSUM
command.

Use of the HRCPLX command, with the OMEGAT argument set to

the phase angle value 360, should return the amplitude, according
to the Commands Manual. This is done without actually knowing the
phase angle. The parameters my_force2a, my_force2b, and
my_force2c return Workbench Parameters for the amplitude of
forces on the Point Mass, as shown here in Figure 10. Note in this
figure that the Input Argument is the desired frequency 15867. This
frequency was chosen because of the results of a Modal Analysis
that preceded the Harmonic Analysisthe frequency is close to a
resonant frequency with vertical motion by the top face that is
associated with the Point Mass. There are several Results
parameters, mostly presented for user information.

In Figure 11 below, a Frequency Response object is used to find the

frequency and phase angle at which a maximum Y movement
response is found on the selected face. This is the movement for
which the vertical force on the Point Mass has been measured.

Conclusion
Forces on Point Masses can be measured in APDL Commands
Objects in both Static and Harmonic Analysis in ANSYS Workbench
Mechanical. In the case of Harmonic Analysis, it is important to
discover the maximum amplitude, as illustrated in the use of the
HRCPLX command. Frequency Response plots also give insight into
movements in a Harmonic Response analysis

Figure 11: Frequency Response Chart for Face

Figure 10: Details of APDL Commands
Object

Appendix

The following is the text of the APDL Commands Object used in retrieving the Harmonic Analysis Force and
other data. The user must supply the ARG1 parameter (the frequency of interest in cycles per second) as an
Input in the Details of the object:

set,,,,,ARG1 ! "Time" i.e. Frequency of interest

*get,my_lstp,ACTIVE,,SET,LSTP ! Current loadstep number
*get,my_sbst,ACTIVE,,SET,SBST ! Current substep number
*get,my_freq,ACTIVE,,SET,FREQ ! check the freqency value
!
*get,my_uy_mymass1,node,mymass,u,y ! UY of node at remote mass
!
cmsel,s,Face_Selection ! Nodes on the face of interest
PRNLD,FY
PRNLD,FY,CONT
PRNLD,FY,BOTH
!
FSUM ! sum of forces
*get,my_force1a,FSUM,,ITEM,FY ! What FSUM value for FY
FSUM,,CONT ! sum of forces
*get,my_force1b,FSUM,,ITEM,FY ! What FSUM value for FY
FSUM,,BOTH ! sum of forces
*get,my_force1c,FSUM,,ITEM,FY ! What FSUM value for FY
!
allsel
HRCPLX,my_lstp,my_sbst,360 ! OMEGAT>=360 returns Amplitude, per commands manual
*get,my_uy_mymass2,node,mymass,u,y ! UY of node at remote mass
cmsel,s,Face_Selection ! Nodes on the face of interest
PRNLD,FY
PRNLD,FY,CONT
PRNLD,FY,BOTH
!
FSUM
*get,my_force2a,FSUM,,ITEM,FY ! What FSUM value for FY
FSUM,CONT
*get,my_force2b,FSUM,,ITEM,FY ! What FSUM value for FY
FSUM,BOTH
*get,my_force2c,FSUM,,ITEM,FY ! What FSUM value for FY
!
PRNLD,FY
PRNLD,FY,CONT
PRNLD,FY,BOTH
allsel

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