Lab: Computer Aided Engineering

Lab: 02
Geometry Creation
Introduction
This lab is on the basic tutorials devised to illustrate common features of geometric modeling in ANSYS®. The
Solid Modeling Tutorial will introduce various techniques which can be used in ANSYS to create solid models.
Filleting, extrusion/sweeping, copying, and working plane orientation will be covered in detail. Two Solid
Models will be created within this tutorial.
Geometric Modeling in Ansys® is different from other geometric modeling softwares. Here we will study terms
like ‘Key points’, ‘Lines’, ‘Areas’ and ‘Volumes’ and is a separate entity itself.
Key points: Location points, marked by coordinates. Key points are the most basic feature of the geometry
and by the combinations of these points geometry can be build.
Lines: By the combination of two key points a line can be generated.
Areas: By a closed loop of lines an area can be visualized.
Volumes: A closed loop of areas generates volume.
A geometric model can be directly generated and/or can be built by the hierarchy of the basic key points to the
required level. It can also be imported from other solid modelers in mainly *.sat or *.iges are in any other
compatible format.
Problem Description
We will be creating a solid model of the pulley shown in the following figure.

Geometry Generation
We will create this model by first tracing out the cross section of the pulley and then sweeping this area about
the y axis.
Creation of Cross Sectional Area
1. Create 3 Rectangles
Main Menu > Preprocessor > (-Modeling-) Create > Rectangle > By 2 Corners
BLC4, XCORNER, YCORNER, WIDTH, HEIGHT

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The geometry of the rectangles:

Rectangle 1 Rectangle 2 Rectangle 3
WP X (XCORNER) 2 3 8
WP Y (YCORNER) 0 2 0
WIDTH 1 5 0.5
HEIGHT 5.5 1 5
You should obtain the following:

2. Add the Areas

Main Menu > Preprocessor > (-Modeling-) Operate > (-Boolean-) Add > Areas
AADD, ALL
ANSYS will label the united area as AREA 4 and the previous three areas will be deleted.
3. Create the rounded edges using circles
Preprocessor > (-Modeling-) Create > (-Areas-) Circle > Solid circles
CYL4, XCENTER, YCENTER, RAD
The geometry of the circles:
Circle 1 Circle 2
WP X (XCENTER) 3 8.5
WP Y (YCENTER) 5.5 0.2
RADIUS 0.5 0.2
4. Subtract the large circle from the base
Preprocessor > Operate > Subtract > Areas
ASBA, BASE, SUBTRACT
5. Copy the smaller circle for the rounded edges at the top
Preprocessor > (-Modeling-) Copy > Areas
o Click on the small circle and then on OK.
o The following window will appear. It asks for the x,y and z offset of the copied area. Enter the y
offset as 4.6 and then click OK.

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o Copy this new area now with an x offset of -0.5

You should obtain the following

6. Add the smaller circles to the large area.

Preprocessor > Operate > Add > Areas
AADD, ALL
7. Fillet the inside edges of the top half of the area
Preprocessor > Create > (-Lines-) Line Fillet
o Select the two lines shown below and click on OK.

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o The following window will appear prompting for the fillet radius. Enter 0.1

o Follow the same procedure and create a fillet with the same radius between the following lines

8. Create the fillet areas

o As shown below, zoom into the fillet radius and plot and number the lines.

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Preprocessor > (-Modeling-) Create > (-Areas-) Arbitrary > By Lines

o Select the lines as shown below

o Repeat for the other fillet

9. Add all the areas together
Preprocessor > Operate > Add > Areas
AADD, ALL
10. Plot the areas (Utility Menu > Plot - Areas)
Sweep the Cross Sectional Area
Now we need to sweep the area around a y axis at x=0 and z=0 to create the pulley.
1. Create two key points defining the y axis
Create key points at (0, 0, 0) and (0, 5 ,0) and number them 1001 and 1002 respectively.
(K,#,X,Y,Z)
2. By default the graphics will now show all key points. Plot Areas
3. Sweep the area about the y axis
Preprocessor > (-Modeling-) Operate > Extrude > (-Areas-) about axis
o You will first be prompted to select the areas to be swept so click on the area.
o Then you will be asked to enter or pick two key points defining the axis.
o Plot the Key points (Utility Menu > Plot > Key points. Then select the following two key points

o The following window will appear prompting for sweeping angles. Click on OK.
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You should now see the following in the graphics screen.

Create Bolt Holes

1. Change the Working Plane
By default, the working plane in ANSYS is located on the global Cartesian X-Y plane. However, for us
to define the bolt holes, we need to use a different working plane. There are several ways to define a
working plane, one of which is to define it by three key points.
o Create the following Key points
X Y Z
#2001 0 3 0
#2002 1 3 0
#2003 0 3 1
o Switch the view to top view and plot only key points.
2. Align the Working Plane with the Key points
Utility Menu > Work Plane > Align WP with > Key points +
o Select Key points 2001 then 2002 then 2003 IN THAT ORDER. The first key point (2001)
defines the origin of the working plane coordinate system, the second key point (2002) defines
the x-axis orientation, while the third (2003) defines the orientation of the working plane. The
following warning will appear when selecting the key point at the origin as there are more than
one in this location.

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Just click on 'Next' until the one selected is 2001.

o Once you have selected the 3 key points and clicked 'OK' the WP symbol (green) should appear
in the Graphics window. Another way to make sure the active WP has moves is:
Utility Menu > WorkPlane > Show WP Status

Note the origin of the working plane. By default those values would be 0, 0, 0.
3. Create a Cylinder (solid cylinder) with x=5.5 y=0 r=0.5 depth=1 You should see the following in the
graphics screen

We will now copy this volume so that we repeat it every 45 degrees. Note that you must copy the
cylinder before you use Boolean operations to subtract it because you cannot copy an empty space.
4. We need to change active CS to cylindrical Y
Utility Menu > Work Plane > Change Active CS to > Global Cylindrical Y
this will allow us to copy radially about the Y axis
5. Create 8 bolt Holes
Preprocessor > Copy > Volumes
o Select the cylinder volume and click on OK. The following window will appear; fill in the blanks
as shown,

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Youi should obtain the following model,

o Subtract the cylinders from the pulley hub (Boolean operations) to create the bolt holes. This will
result in the following completed structure:

Try to understand the following and use GUI to build the model.
/PREP7
BLC4,0,0,109,102 ! Create rectangle
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K,5,-20,82 ! Keypoints
K,6,-20,20
K,7,0,82
K,8,0,20
LARC,4,5,7,20 ! Line arcs
LARC,1,6,8,20
L,5,6
AL,4,5,6,7 ! Creates area from 4 lines
AADD,1,2 ! Now called area 3
CYL4,0,20,10 ! Area 1
AGEN,2,1, , ,69 ! Mirrors area 1
AGEN,2,1,2, , ,62 ! Mirrors again
ASBA,3,ALL ! Subtracts areas
VOFFST,6,26 ! Creates volume from area
K,100,109,102,0 ! Keypoints
K,101,109,2,0
K,102,159,102,sqrt(3)/0.02
KWPLAN,-1,100,101,102 ! Defines working plane
BLC4,0,0,102,180 ! Create rectangle
CYL4,51,180,51 ! Create circle
AADD,25,26 ! Add them together
VOFFST,27,26 ! Volume from area
VADD,1,2 ! Add volumes
AADD,33,34,38 ! Add areas
AADD,32,36,37
CYL4,51,180,32, , , ,60 ! Create cylinder
VADD,1,3 ! Add volumes
CYL4,51,180,18.5, , , ,60 ! Another cylinder
VSBV,2,1 ! Subtract it
WPCSYS,-1,0 ! This re-aligns the WP with the global coordinate system
K,200,-20,61,26 ! Keypoints
K,201,0,61,26
K,202,-20,61,30
KWPLAN,-1,200,201,202 ! Shift working plane
CSYS,4 ! Change active coordinate system
K,203,129-(0.57735*26),0,0 ! Keypoints
K,204, 129-(0.57735*26) + 38, sqrt(3)/2*76,0
A,200,203,204 ! Create area from keypoints
VOFFST,7,20, ! Volume from area
VADD, ALL ! Add it together
Your model should look like this: