THE 2ND ASSESSMENT PROBLEM

The background to this assessment problem is that a company plans to make a flywheel (Fig.1) that is required
to operate mostly at 10,000 rpm rotation speed although to reach this speed the flywheel rotation speed varies
in range: 0 – 10,000 rpm. The flywheel is to be constructed from stainless steel for which Young’s modulus
can be taken as being 170 GPa, Poisson’s ratio 0.31, the density 4470 kg/m 3, and the yield stress level 760
MPa.

The flywheel lateral displacements are constrained at the roller bearing supports, which can be seen
in the original IGES file drawings. The vertical displacements are constrained at the bottom end of the
flywheel shaft.
The company has two concerns:

 The first is the level of stress that occur in the flywheel at the maximum rotation speed under action
of the inertial loads due to the rotor rotation. The company wants to be sure that the plastic deformation
does not occur since it can lead to low-cycle fatigue failure of the flywheel.
 The second concern is whether at the operating rotation speed of 10,000rpm, the flywheel will not
operate dangerously close to the resonance. Moreover, they are interested to determine whether is
likely to pass through the resonances under speeding-up the flywheel to the nominal operation speed,
which can also potentially lead to a failure condition. In all cases, the major source of the vibration
excitation is the flywheel unbalanced masses.

An AutoCAD generated IGES file of the flywheel geometry is provided in the IGES file
‘flywheel2019.igs’ which has to be downloaded from the course web pages. You should import this file to
create the flywheel finite element models allowing you to study both company concerns: (i) static
deformation of the flywheel and (ii) its modal analysis. Choose the reference frame correctly for each of
these two analyses. The model provided in the IGES file was created in AutoCAD and all sizes are provided
in millimetres.

Preparing the model geometry

Because the flywheel is an axisymmetric structure, it can be modeled as a two-dimensional model for static
analysis (although for the modal analysis a full 3D model may be useful to help visualizing the mode shapes).
Therefore, you have to obtain from the data contained in the IGES file an area that corresponds to the radial
cross-section of the flywheel. The half cross-section of the flywheel should look like that shown in Fig 1b).
Note that this is a half section because the flywheel is symmetrical about the centerline of the axle.
The ANSYS model created from the imported IGES file will need to be tidied up before the analysis can be
carried out. The model will probably show on the screen as an isometric projection as shown below:

Use Plot controls>Pan/Zoom/Rotate to obtain a front view. To remove unwanted lines together with
the keypoints defining these lines use the Preprocessor>Modeling>Delete>Lines and Below command.

Duplicate lines and keypoints are frequently encountered in AutoCAD generated files, so don’t be
surprised if the ANSYS file produced from the imported file has duplicates of lines and keypoints.

Be careful in deleting the lines since you will need to draw a few additional lines to produce the
required area and before deleting such lines you will need to add several new keypoints on these lines. Use
Preprocessor>Modeling>Operate>Booleans>Divide>Line by Line> to divide lines and create additional
keypoints needed for creating the flywheel radial cross-section. Alternatively you can use
Preprocessor>Modeling>Create>Keypoints>On Lines and pick the line and then the position of the
required keypoint or you can draw a line from a keypoint which is perpendicular to a selected line:
Preprocessor>Modeling>Create>Lines>Lines>Normal to Line. Remember you can always use the
Session Editor to correct mistakes.

After additional keypoints are created and the unnecessary lines and keypoints are removed, check
this by plotting lines and keypoints and clear more if necessary.

Then you can draw additional lines using existing before and new keypoints. The creation of new
keypoints and lines may be convenient to do for parts of the model sequentially and not for all lines at once.

The roller bearings at two ends of the shaft (see the zoomed figure below showing the lower
bearings) are not required for the analysis, so may be removed, but, since at these locations the flywheel is
fixed against lateral deflections, the new keypoints and lines have to be created to allow the application of
the corresponding boundary conditions accurately.
Once all unwanted lines have been removed and new lines created you can use the remaining lines to create
an area (Preprocessor>Modeling>Create>Areas>Arbitrary>By Lines). Note that the model in the IGES
file provided has dimensions in mm. This is likely to give a Note that the model in the IGES file provided has
dimensions in mm. This is likely to give a problem when performing the stress analysis and the dimensions
should be changed to be in MKS units.
You need to prepare an area model that is suitable for axisymmetric analysis, so you will need to move
the area to make the symmetry axis coincident with the global Y axis. To do this, determine the co-ordinates
of a convenient point on the model axis and then move the area so that the model axis lies on the Y axis.
Be patient and careful in tiding up the model from IGES file, which may require some time and
corrections of some modifications you might make by mistake. Keep you .log file to be able to make such
corrections (by choosing and reading correct sets of commands) or use the Session Editor to make corrections.

Second assessment objectives

In the second assessment exercise, you should carry out:
i. a static stress analysis under action of the centrifugal forces occurring in the flywheel rotating
in the rotation speed range given in the problem description and
ii. a modal analysis of the flywheel and determination of critical rotation speeds.

1. For the stress analysis, you can use a 2D analysis, with the element set as being axisymmetric. The
cause of the static stresses in the flywheel is the inertial centrifugal forces occurring due to its rotation.
The information required is the value of the maximum stresses in the rotating flywheel, comments on
whether that is considered acceptable.
2. The 3D model is preferred for the modal analysis here. It can be created by the extrusion of the 2D
model around the axle centerline. Obtain natural frequencies of the first 6 modes of vibration at the
operating rotation speed 10000 rpm, plot their mode shapes, comment and classify the found vibration
modes.
3. Determine the critical rotation speeds in the operational rotation speed range, i.e. find the rotation
speeds at which the resonance vibrations can be excited by the rotor unbalanced masses. Use the
Campbell diagram to do this. In the assessment of the dangerous rotation speeds take also into account
the mode shapes corresponding to the found natural frequencies: some of the modes may not be excited
by the unbalanced masses.
4. For both problems perform the mesh convergence analysis. The mesh refinements required for stress
analysis and for modal analysis can differ: finite element meshes used for the modal analysis are
usually significantly coarser than for the stress analysis although they can provide an acceptable
accuracy in the natural frequency and mode shape calculation. Describe what displacement constraints
and loads are applied in your model for each of the problems considered.
5. Any suggestions and recommendations regarding possible modifications of the design that you
consider necessary in order to achieve the required objectives would be also useful.
6. General recommendations given for report writing in the 1st assessment are fully applicable here also,
including the mesh verification and results’ validation.
 7. A report of your findings is to be submitted to the Department Office by May 16th (please, check this
in your current schedule). Do not forget that the deadline time is 4:00 pm, any work handed in later
than this is classified as late.
8. A CD or USB memory stick containing ANSYS files created for the finite element analysis of this
problem need to be attached to the report (files with extensions *.log and *.db are a must).

Report Assessment
Maximum mark: 100
Weighting of this submission in the total course assessment: 60%
Marking scheme of the contribution:
Report and presentation of work: 30%
Finite element analysis: modeling and solution 40%
Understanding, validation and discussion of results 30%