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Cyclic Symmetry Modeling: Fan Example

For more information (including a video demonstration),
see the associated SIMULIA e-Learning Resource
https://swym.3ds.com/#post:15253

This exercise was written using Abaqus 6.12

Goals
When you complete this exercise, you will be able to:
Define cyclic symmetry in Abaqus/CAE for a model with a cyclic symmetric initial state
but a nonsymmetric response
Visualize the results of a analysis cyclic symmetric analysis

Introduction
In this exercise you will use cyclic symmetry in Abaqus/Standard to analyze the fan shown
below:

Fan: full fan (left) and modeled sector (right)

The blades and the hub are made up of S4R shell elements. The material is elastic, with a
Young's modulus of 200 GPa and a Poisson's ratio of 0.29. The density of the material is
7850 kg/m3. All nodes along the mounting hole at the hub center are fixed.

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In the first step of the analysis a centrifugal load corresponding to an angular speed of 28.33
radians/sec is applied. In the second analysis step natural frequencies corresponding to both
symmetric and nonsymmetric eigenmodes will be extracted for all cyclic symmetry modes.

A. Preliminaries
1. Open CyclicSymmetry-fan-start.cae in Abaqus/CAE; it can be found in
CyclicSymmetry-fan-Model-Abaqus612.zip (see
https://swym.3ds.com/#post:12645).
B. Create the Cyclic symmetry interaction
In Abaqus/CAE cyclic symmetry is defined as an interaction in the initial step.
1. Double click Interactions in the Model Tree to create a new interaction.
2. Select Initial as the step and Cyclic symmetry (Standard) as the interaction type.
3. In the prompt area select Node Region as the master region type, and then select
MASTER1 as the master node set for the interaction. Click Continue.
4. In the prompt area select Node Region as the slave region type, and then select
SLAVE1 as the slave node set for the interaction. Click Continue.
Note that the meshes on these surfaces do not need to match. When the meshes do not
match, generally the surface with the finer meshed surface should be selected as the
slave.
5.

6.
7.
8.
9.

Now to define the axis of symmetry by selecting two reference points.

In the prompt area, click Select in Viewport (to close the region selection dialog
box) and choose Geometry as the region type for the first point on the axis of
symmetry.
In the viewport, select reference point RP-2 as the first point on the axis of symmetry.
In the prompt area, choose Geometry as the region type for second point on the axis
of symmetry.
In the viewport, select reference point RP-1 as the second point on the axis of
symmetry.
In the cyclic symmetry interaction editor:
a. Specify that there are four of these sectors in the complete fan geometry.
b. Accept the default option to use all possible extracted nodal diameters.
c. Click OK to complete the cyclic symmetry definition.

Note: The extracted nodal diameter settings allow for the analysis of a nonsymmetric

response about a cyclic symmetric base state. This type of analysis is possible because
the full response of an entire cyclic symmetric structure can be represented as a linear
combination of several independent basic responses, each of which corresponds to some
cyclic symmetry fold mode. The symmetry mode number, referred to as the nodal
diameter, indicates the number of waves along the circumference in a basic response.
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(For example, for a flat disk, here is the response corresponding to the 0-fold cyclic
symmetry mode, the 1-fold cyclic symmetry mode, and the 2-fold cyclic symmetry
mode).

For more information on this type of simulation, please refer to the Abaqus Analysis
User's Manual.
C. Run the analysis and visualize the resluts
1. Submit job fan-cyclicSymm for analysis.
2. When the analysis completes open fan-cyclicSymm.odb in the Visualization
module.
3. From the main menu bar, select View ODB display options.
4. On the Sweep/Extrude tabbed page of the ODB display options dialog box that
appears, toggle on the option to sweep cyclic symmetry sectors and choose All
Sections from the section selection drop down list.
5. Create a contour plot of displacement magnitude.
6. Finally, animate results on the entire impellor geometry.
7. From the main menu bar, select ResultStep/Frame and use the Step/Frame dialog
box that appears to switch between different modes in the step 2 (the frequency
extraction step).
8. From the main menu bar, select AnimateHarmonic to animate the results. In the
animation options (OptionsAnimation) choose the Swing mode to animate the
complete fan vibrations.

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The results of the first four modes are shown below:

Answer files:
The complete model CyclicSymmetry-fan-complete.cae and input file fancyclicSymm.inp can be found in CyclicSymmetry-fan-ModelAbaqus612.zip (see https://swym.3ds.com/#post:12645).

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