Use of Parameters & Functions in LS-DYNA

In this example we will explore the use of parameters and how to define time dependent loading. We will use the plate model from the previous exercise with the same loading which in this case oscillates harmonically as shown in the graph below:

Building the Model: 1. To create the model click on page 7 in the main menu and select the Mesh tab to open the Meshing interface. Let the entity remain Box_Solid and select Box. Enter the co-ordinates of the end points of the diagonal as 0, 0, 0 and 1.0, 1.0, 0.02. Enter the mesh density as Nx: 20, Ny: 20 & Nz: 2. Click Create and then Accept. Press Done to clear the dynamic interface area. 2. To define the material properties open page 3 and click on the *Mat tab. From the Group by drop-down menu select All. Scroll down and select 001-ELASTIC and press Edit. In the Title enter Aluminum. You can click on NewID or type in the material identification MID as 1. The density RO is 2700 (kg/m3), Youngs Modulus E is 69E+9 (Pa) and the Poissons Ratio PR is 0.3. Press Accept, then Done. 3. Now click on the *Section tab, select SOLID and press Edit. Enter the Section ID SECID as 1. Entering the title is optional. For this problem we will use the default constant stress solid element. Press Accept, then Done. 4. To assign the material properties and the element definitions to the model press the *Part tab. Select PART (1) and press Edit. You can change the title to Plate. Enter SECID and MID as 1. Click Accept, then Done. 5. Change the Title displayed on the screen and also in the keyword file by going to page 4 and pressing he *Title tab. Select & Edit [*]TITLE (1). Change the title to Harmonic Loading of an Aluminum Plate. Press Accept then Done. 6. Save the model by selecting File>Save Keyword from the pull down Menu. Enter the filename as Harmonic.k and press Save. 1

Loads & Boundary Conditions: 1. To define the parameters that describe the harmonic loading press the *Param tab. Select DEFINE and click Edit. Press NewID to set the default ID to 1. Select Type: Float and enter the parameter name amp with value 1.00e+6. Press Accept to save. Press Add and similarly enter two more float type parameters freq and shift with values 60.0 and 0.0 respectively. Click Done to exit. 2. To select the surface segments on which the pressure load will be applied go to page 5. Click on the Set Data interface SetD tab. Scroll down to SET_SEGM on the drop down list and select the Create button. Enter Set ID SID as 1. In the interface area below the rendering hot buttons click Area to select segments lying within the picked area and select ByElem to pick segments by element. Set the model into front view (ZY) using the rendering hot button. Left click and drag the mouse so that only the top horizontal edge lies completely within the box (your box should end above the line that lies between the two layers of elements). Rotate the model around and check if all the element faces on the top surface (400) have been selected. Click Apply, then Done in the Set Data interface area on the right. 3. To define the load curve go back to page 3. Press the *Define tab and select to Edit CURVE_FUNCTION from the list. Enter the Load Curve ID LCID as 1. We have already defined the parameters required to define sinusoidal (harmonic) loading. The amplitude of the force, A amp is 1.00e+6 N. The angular frequency, freq is 60 radians per sec. The frequency shift, shift is 0.0. Thus we can define a harmonic function ASin(t + ) to model the loading curve shown above, where t is the time in seconds. Type in the following expression in the function field: &amp*sin(&freq*TIME+&shift). Click Insert to save. Change SDIR to 0. Click Accept, then Done. Thus we have defined a sinusoidal pressure load with an angular frequency () of 60 (cyclic frequency (f): 60/2 Hz; since =2f). 4. Now to apply the load select the *Load tab. Select SEGMENT_SET from the list and press Edit. Enter the Segment Set ID SSID as 1 and Load Curve ID LCID as 1. Click Draw to visualize the load vectors on the nodes. Click ResForm button in the interface area below the rendering hot buttons to restore the dialog window. Press Accept, then Done. 5. To select the nodes on the bottom edges of the plate which will be fixed go back to page 5. Select the Single Point Constraint Data interface Spc tab. Select Create and Set. Enter the node set ID NSID as 1 or alternatively press NewID. In the interface area below the rendering hot buttons select by edge ByEdge and then select to propagate the selection Prop. Click on any edge of the bottom face (do not click on a node) to select all the nodes belonging to that edge. Click on the other three edges in a similar fashion to select all the edges to be fixed. In the interface area on the right select the X, Y & Z translational degrees of freedom to be constrained. Click Apply and Done. 6. In this example we will output results of the 4 elements and the 9 nodes that lie in the center of the top face of the plate. Go to page 3 and select *Set tab. Press All and select NODE_LIST_GENERATE to Edit. Enter the SID as 2. In the fields below enter B1BEG-B1END:10811083, B2BEG-B2END:1102-1104 & B3BEG-B3END:1123-1125. Press Insert to save then Accept & Done. From the same list select SOLID_GENERATE and press Edit. Enter SID as 1. In the fields 2

below enter B1BEG-B1END:590-591 & B2BEG-B2END:610-611. Press Insert to save then Accept & Done. Defining Solution & Output Parameters 1. Click on the *Control tab, select TERMINATION and press Edit. Enter the termination time ENDTIM as 0.1 (sec). Select Accept then press Done. 2. Select HOURGLASS from the list to Edit. Change the default hourglass viscosity type IHQ to 4 for the stiffness form of Flanagan-Belytschko integration. Press Accept, then Done. 3. To calculate the energies select ENERGY from the list to Edit. Change the hourglass energy calculation option HGEN to 2 to include hourglass energy in the energy balance. 4. To specify the output database to be written click on the *Dbase tab. Select BINARY_D3PLOT from the list and press Edit. Enter the time interval between complete output states DT as 0.0001. Click Accept, then Done. Notice that the time interval is very small in this case to capture the oscillatory motion satisfactorily. 5. Select BINARY_D3THDT and click Edit. Enter the time interval between outputs of time history data DT as 0.1. Select Accept then press Done. 6. Select HISTORY_NODE_SET and press Edit. Press NewID and enter ID1 as 2. Click Insert to save the data group. Press Accept then Done. Now select HISTORY_SOLID_SET and press Edit. Press NewID and enter ID1 as 1. Click Insert to save the data group. Press Accept then Done. 7. Click on ASCII_option then Edit. Select BNDOUT to output boundary condition forces and energy, GLSTAT for global statistics, MATSUM for material energies and enter the output interval in the field below as 0.05 for each of them. Select SPCFORC to output the constraint reaction forces and enter the output time interval as 0.04999. Select ELOUT & NODOUT to print element result data and nodal displacement/velocity/acceleration data for the selected set at an interval of 0.005. Press Accept, then Done. Save the keyword file again. Solution & Postprocessing 1. To solve the current keyword file first copy it to your hammer account. To run LS-DYNA type in lsdyna I= Harmonic.k and press Enter. 2. To look at the results copy your result files back onto your computer and start LS-PREPOST. Click on File>Open>Binary Plot in the pull down Menu and select d3plot and press OK. 3. Entities of interest whose fringe plots may be plotted are pressure, von Mises stress and zdisplacement. Owing to the large number of plot states, during the animation you can skip intermediate plot states by setting Inc equal to 10 to run the animation faster. 4. Click on the tab Find. Select Node, enter 662 in the field and click Find. Press the History tab and select Nodal. From the list select Z-displacement and press Plot. The plot window has a lot of tools that allow you to operate on the curve before you save a plot. Press Close to close the window.

5. Exit LS-PREPOST and look for the ASCII result files you had copied. The file bndout contains the forces and energies associated with the nodes having the pressure boundary condition. spcforc contains the reaction forces on the nodes that had been constrained. glstat and matsum contain energy values, the global velocities, momentums and hourglass energy values. elout contains stress values of the selected 4 elements. nodout contains the displacement, velocity & acceleration components and the deformed coordinates of the selected nine nodes. Thus we saw how you can extract data of your interest to various ASCII files which may help you in understanding the problem better or even serve as an input to your own code. There are a lot of useful tools for visualizing output data even within the postprocessing options on page 1.

Questions, comments? Contact: rcc@rcc.its.psu.edu

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