MIL: \u201cDo you have a GPS so you know how to get there?\u201d <\/p>\n
Me: \u201cThere\u2019s an App for that.\u201d <\/p>\n
MIL: \u201cDo you have a flashlight?\u201d <\/p>\n
Me: \u201cThere\u2019s an App for that.\u201d <\/p>\n
MIL: \u201cDo you have a chromatic tuner?\u201d <\/p>\n
Me: \u201cThere\u2019s an app for that.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
OK, maybe my mother-in-law didn\u2019t ask about the tuner, but there is in fact an app for that. <\/p>\n
In similar fashion, now that ACT (ANSYS Customization Toolkit) is a reality, we can start answering questions with, \u201cThere\u2019s an Extension for that.\u201d What is an extension? It\u2019s a bit of customized software that you can integrate with ANSYS Workbench to have it do things that aren\u2019t built in to the current menus. <\/p>\n
We\u2019ll leave the nuts and bolts of how Extensions work for another article, but please be aware that current ANSYS customers can now download several Extensions from the ANSYS Customer Portal. We\u2019ll take a look at one of these in this blog entry. <\/p>\n
To access the currently available extensions, you must have a login to the ANSYS Customer Portal and be current on maintenance (TECS). Within the customer portal, the Extensions are available by clicking on Downloads > Extension Library; then click on ACT Library. <\/p>\n
As of this writing there are 12 extensions available for download. These vary from the sophisticated Acoustics Extension for 14.5 to simpler extensions such as the one we\u2019ll look at here which allows you to change the material property numbers of entities in Workbench Mechanical. <\/p>\n
Once you have downloaded the desired extension, you\u2019ll need to install it. For use in the current project, you click on Extensions at the menu near the top of the Workbench Window and click on Install Extension. <\/p>\n
After clicking on Install Extension, you browse to the folder in which you have saved the downloaded extension. The Extension file extension (I\u2019m not making this up) is .wbex. Here is what it looks like when loading the material change extension: <\/p>\n Click Open. <\/p>\n Next you must click on Extensions again the Workbench window, and click on Manage Extensions. That will bring up this window. <\/p>\n Check the box next to any extensions you want to load, then click Close. If you have already launched the Mechanical editor, you will probably need to exit Workbench and get back in or at least click on File > New and reload for the new extension to show up. <\/p>\n When you open the Mechanical editor, the new extension should show up in the menus. Here is what the material change button looks like after the extension has been loaded: <\/p>\n Each time you open a new Workbench session, you\u2019ll need to click on Extensions > Manage Extensions if you want an extension to be loaded into the Mechanical editor. <\/p>\n Alternatively, you can have an extension load every time by clicking on Tools > Options from the Workbench window, followed by a click on Extensions. Enter the name of the desired extension in the box, as shown here. <\/p>\n After clicking OK, any new Mechanical editor session will have the material change extension loaded. <\/p>\n So, what good is it? I will now show a simple example of implementation of the material change extension. The idea here is that we have a bolted connection and we want to look at two different conditions by changing the material properties of the washers to see what effect that has on the results. Using the material change extension, I can force the washers (and nuts and bolts too) to have a specific material number rather than the default value assigned by Workbench. The material number is used in the Mechanical APDL batch input file created by Workbench to identify which elements have which material properties. <\/p>\n Now before you APDL gurus get all riled up, yes, I know this can be done with the magic \u2018matid\u2019 parameter. That\u2019s how we\u2019ve been doing things like this for years. The material number extension is nicer since it\u2019s an actual button built into the GUI. We\u2019re really trying to show how extensions work here, not necessarily the best way to simulate a model with changing material properties. <\/p>\n That all being said, here is what it looks like. Clicking on the \u2018matchange\u2019 button in the menus inserts a new matchange object in the tree under the analysis type branch. In this example, the matchange button has been clicked three times, resulting in three matchange objects. <\/p>\n The matchange functionality requires that we create Named Selections for any entities for which we want to change material property numbers. How do I know that? When I downloaded the extension from the ANSYS Customer Portal, a nice read me .pdf file came along with it. <\/p>\n Here I have clicked on matchange 2 in the tree and identified the Named Selection for the entities I want to change, in this case the named selection Washers. I then entered my desired integer material number for these entities, 102. <\/p>\n![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/www.padtinc.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/image7.png\" "\\"image\\"")
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