Bolted Joints in ANSYS
Bolted Joints in ANSYS
(OP)
I am very familiar with Nastran solver codes, but a recent client of mine prefers ANSYS and I am currently trying to bridge the gap between these two software packages. One area in particular that I was curious about is modeling bolted joint connections. Typically in my experience with Nastran it isn't necessary to explicitly model the bolt itself - instead I'll do something like use rigid bodies (RBEs) to connect to the rest of the mesh structure and have a spring element (CBUSH) between these rigid bodies to control stiffness in each DOF.
Example
I came across contact elements and pretension elements, which could be used to explicitly define the bolted connection, but this is more "refined" then I currently need for my analysis. Is it common to implement simplified methods like the one I described above to model these connections? If yes, what are some methods that you've employed?
I came across contact elements and pretension elements, which could be used to explicitly define the bolted connection, but this is more "refined" then I currently need for my analysis. Is it common to implement simplified methods like the one I described above to model these connections? If yes, what are some methods that you've employed?





RE: Bolted Joints in ANSYS
The Ansys help describes the procedure to apply it, here is the path:
// Mechanical Application User's Guide // Features // Connections // Joints // Types of Joints
RE: Bolted Joints in ANSYS
Of course, there are simpler ways of modeling bolts depending on your desired level of accuracy. Here is a paper that describes various ways of representing bolts in your ANSYS model: http://www.ansys.com/staticassets/ANSYS/staticasse...