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Engineering Solutions Tutorials

CFD User Profile Tutorials

Crash User Profile Tutorials

NVH User Profile Tutorials

Accessing the Model Files

Required model files of the models you build in the tutorials are available online.

1. To access model files, visit the Altair Client Center or Altair Connect.
A user ID and password are required to access the model files. Follow the instructions at the
website to obtain login credentials.

2. Select the required file package and download it onto your system.

Note that the files may require unzipping before proceeding with the tutorials. When extracting
zipped files, preserve any directory structure included in the file package.
CFD

The following tutorials are available for the CFD user profile:

CFD-1000: Creating a Hybrid Grid using the CFD Mesh Panel

CFD-1100: Creating a Hybrid Grid with Varying Boundary Layer Thickness

CFD-1200: CFD Meshing with Automatic BL Thickness Reduction

CFD-1300: Plane 2D Meshing with Boundary Layers

CFD-1400: Wind Tunnel Mesh

CFD-1500: Hexcore Meshing with Boundary Layer

CFD-1600: Using Distributed Thickness for Varying Boundary Layer Thickness

CFD-1700:Mapping CFD Results

CFD-1100: Creating a Hybrid Grid with Varying Boundary Layer Thickness

In this tutorial, you will learn to:

• Generate boundary layer type meshes with an arbitrary number of layers and thickness
distribution, which can be used for CFD applications, molding simulations, or other processes.
• Generate automatically a distributed thickness distribution to prevent boundary layer
interference /collision in zones where the distance between opposing walls is too small to
accommodate the baseline or nominal boundary layer thickness.
The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the CFD User Profile

1. From the menu bar, select Preferences > User Profiles or click on the Standard toolbar.
2. Select Engineering Solutions >CFD.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Model File

1. On the Standard toolbar, click the Open Model icon.

2. Select the molding1.hm file.

3. Click Open to load this file containing the surface mesh.

4. Inspect the surface elements that will be used to generate the volume mesh. The boundary
mesh can have any combination of tria/quad elements. You will generate boundary layers on all
the surface elements contained in the collector named wall.

Step 3: Check That All the Elements in Collector Wall Define a Closed Volume

1. Click Mesh > Check > Components > Edges to open the Edges panel.

2. Click comps and select the collector wall.

3. Click find edges. A message indicating that no edges were found will appear on the status bar.
4. Toggle free edges to T-connections.
 5. Select the collector wall again and click find edges. The status bar will display, “No T-
connected edges were found.”

Step 4: Create the CFD Mesh

1. Click Mesh > Volume Mesh 3D > CFD Tetramesh to open the CFD Tetramesh panel.
2. Select the Boundary selection subpanel. You will need to first select all the elements/components
that define the surface area on which you need to generate boundary layers. This is done by selecting
the elements/components under the With BL (float) selector.

3. Under the heading With BL (float), click comps and select the collector wall.
4. Verify that the switch below the W/o BL (float) selector is set to Remesh. This means that the
meshes in the zones defined by the collector wall will be remeshed after being deformed by the
boundary layer growth from adjacent surface areas.

5. Select Smooth BL. This option is strongly recommended for most cases because it produces boundary
layers with more uniform thickness and better element quality.

6. Click the BL parameters subpanel. All the data that has been entered in the Boundary selection
subpanel is stored.

7. Select the options to specify the boundary layer and tetrahedral core:

• Number of Layers = 5

• First layer thickness = 0.5

• BL growth rate= 1.0 (This non-dimensional factor controls the change in layer thickness from one
layer to the next).

8. Under the BL hexa transition mode header, change the selection to All Prisms (Prism to all
Layers). This means that if there are any quad elements in the surface mesh, those will be split into
two trias each so that there is no need to transition from quad faces to tria faces when transitioning
from the last boundary layer to the tetrahedral core. This option is very important when there are
quad elements on areas with (low) distributed BL thickness ratio, because in such areas the thickness
of the transition elements (for example simple pyramid) was not taken into account when doing the
interference study to assign distributed BL thickness ratio to those elements.

9. Leave the BL only checkbox unchecked. This option generates the boundary layer alone and stops
before generating the tetrahedral core. This option modifies adjacent surface meshes to reflect
changes introduced by the boundary layer thickness, and creates a collector named
^CFD_trias_for_tetramesh, that is used to generate the inner core tetrahedral mesh using the
Tetramesh parameters subpanel.

10. Check the box for Pre calc and then click Auto.
11. In the Generate Boundary Layer distributed thickness values dialog, notice that the wall
component is already selected and has a Bound Type of wall. This is because the wall component was
selected in the Boundary selection subpanel.

12. Specify the Boundary Layer options as shown in the following image.

The number of layers, first layer thickness and growth rate have been established in the BL
parameters subpanel and are greyed out here. All layers will have the same thickness (except for
mesh smoothing operations such as hyperbolic smoothing at corners).

Specify a Minimum (Tetrahedral-Core / Boundary-Layer) thickness ratio value of 2.

This means that in areas where there is not enough room to grow the nominal BL (3 layers of 2 each),
the boundary layers’ thickness will be reduced so that the tetrahedral core thickness is at least 2 times
the total boundary layer thickness, except for mesh smoothing operations such as hyperbolic
smoothing at corners, and convex/concave areas.
 The last option, Bound Layer thickness at corners, is a coefficient that controls the hyperbolic
growth where walls make an angle. The smaller this value is, the thinner the total BL thickness in

such areas is.

Now you are ready to generate the Distributed BL Thickness loading. Make sure that none of the
elements specified in the boundary collectors are masked. If they are masked an error message will
indicate that there is a discrepancy between the total number of elements in the components and the
tria3/quad4 elements found. If you have masked elements, you can access the Mask (F5), and press
unmask all.

13. Click Generate Distributed BL Thickness Ratio.

14. If the model already contains boundary layer thickness ratios, then a pop-up message box will ask you
if you want to keep such loading or if you want to delete them. Most of the time you will want to clear
the existing boundary layer thickness ratios; click Yes. In some special cases you may want to keep
them, if more than one loading value is specified at a node, the minimum value is used when
generating the mesh.

After a few seconds you will see a pop-up message indicating the number of distributed boundary
layer thickness values included in collector ^CFD_BL_Thickness.

15. Click Close in the Generate Boundary Layer distributed thickness values window.

16. Click the Tetramesh parameters subpanel.

17. There are three different tetrameshing algorithms available. Select Optimize Mesh Quality. For a
detailed explanation of each option, please refer to the online help.

18. Set the tetrahedral core growth rate to Interpolate. This avoids the problem of generating
tetrahedral elements that are too large at the center of the core mesh.
19. Click mesh to create the CFD mesh. When this task is finished, two collectors are automatically
created: CFD_bl001 and CFD_tetcore001.
 20. Click return to close the panel.

Step 5: Mask Elements to Inspect the Boundary Layers’ Thickness on Thinner

Areas

1. Access the Mask panel by using the shortcut key F5.

2. Select elements to be masked.
3. Click mask. The following images illustrate how BL interference has been avoided by reducing
the BL thickness.

Step 6: Generate a Pure Tetrahedral Mesh for Moldflow

The mesh needs to consist of tetrahedral elements only. This was accomplished by generating tetras
directly in the boundary layer. However, if you need to split penta / wedge elements into tetras, use
the procedure below.

1. Click Mesh > Edit > Elements > Split Elements.

2. Select the solid elements subpanel.
 3. Set the switch to split into tetras.

4. Select elems >> by collector and select wall.

5. Click split. Now you have a mesh consisting of tetrahedral elements only.
The objective of this tutorial is to illustrate how you can generate very thin boundary layers without
interference. However, such thin boundary layers can lead to element with a high aspect ratio if the
size of the surface mesh is not small enough. If you need to limit the tetrahedral elements’ aspect
ratio (for example, < 5), then you need to use a fine enough mesh on the wall component so that
thin boundary layers do not produce high aspect ratio elements. For example, in this case, the
minimum value of tetra collapse of all tetrahedral core elements was 0.2, but after you split the BL
penta / wedge elements into tetras, the minimum value of tetra collapse of all tetrahedral elements
becomes 0.04. This occurs because the BL penta elements are thin compared to their triangular face
area size.

Summary

Altair HyperMesh allowed you to generate high-quality boundary layer meshes on parts with very
thin walls. To accomplish this you first need to use the utility Generate Distributed BL Thickness
Ratio to generate load collector ^CFD_BL_Thickness. This load collector is then used when you
enable distributed thickness. As shown in the cross-sectional images, the mesh is very smooth
and is of excellent quality.
CFD-1000: Creating a Hybrid Grid Using the CFD Mesh Panel

In this tutorial, you will learn to:

• Generate meshes for CFD applications (for example FLUENT, StarCD) using the CFD
Tetramesh panel
• Generate boundary layer type meshes with an arbitrary number of layers and thickness
distribution
• Specify/identify boundary regions for CFD simulations
• Export a mesh with boundary regions for FLUENT
• Import the model into FLUENT
The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the CFD User Profile

1. From the menu bar, select Preferences > User Profiles or click on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select Engineering Solutions > CFD.

3. Click OK.
4. Inspect the surface elements that will be used to generate the volume mesh. The boundary
mesh can have any combination of tria/quad elements. You will generate boundary layers on all
the surface elements contained in the collector named wall.

Step 2: Open the Model File

1. Click the Open Model icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select the manifold_surf_mesh.hm file.

3. Click Open to load the file containing the surface mesh.

Step 3: Check That All the Elements in the Collectors Wall, Inlet, and Outlets
Define a Closed Volume
 1. Click Mesh > Check > Component > Edges to open the Edges panel.

2. Click comps and select the collectors wall, inlet and outlets.
3. Click select, and then click find edges. A message indicating that no edges were found will
appear on the status bar.

4. Toggle free edges to T-connections.

5. Select the three components again and then click find edges. The status bar will display: "No
T-connected edges were found."

6. Click return to close the panel.

Step 4: Create the CFD Mesh

1. Click Mesh > Volume Mesh 3D > CFD Tetramesh to open the CFD Tetramesh panel.

2. Click the Boundary selection subpanel. You will need to first select all the
elements/components that define the surface area on which you need to generate boundary
layers. This is done by selecting the elements/components under the With BL (float) and
With BL (fixed) selectors.

3. Under the heading With BL (fixed), click comps and select the collector wall. Next, select the
remaining elements/components which define the volume but where a boundary layer is not
desired. This is done by selecting the elements/components under the W/o BL (float) and
W/o BL (fixed) selectors.

4. Under the heading W/o BL (float), click comps and select the collectors inlet and outlets.
5. Verify that the switch below the W/o BL (float) selector is set to Remesh. This means that
the meshes in the zones defined by collectors inlet and outlets will be remeshed after being
deformed by the boundary layer growth from adjacent surface areas.

6. Select Smooth BL. This option is strongly recommended for most cases because it produces
boundary layers with more uniform thickness and better element quality.

7. Click the BL parameters subpanel. All the data that has been entered in the Boundary
selection subpanel is stored.

8. Select the options to specify the boundary layer and tetrahedral core:

• Number of Layers = 5

• First layer thickness = 0.5

• BL growth rate= 1.1 (This non-dimensional factor controls the change in layer thickness
from one layer to the next).

9. Under the BL hexa transition mode header, verify that selection is set to Simple Pyramid.
The default, Simple Pyramid, uses one pyramid element to transition from a BL hexahedral’s
quad face to the tetrahedral core mesh.

10. Leave the BL only checkbox unchecked. This option generates the boundary layer alone and
stops before generating the tetrahedral core. This option modifies adjacent surface meshes to
reflect changes introduced by the boundary layer thickness, and creates a collector named
^CFD_trias_for_tetramesh, that is used to generate the inner core tetrahedral mesh using
the Tetramesh parameters subpanel.

11. Click the Tetramesh parameters subpanel.

12. There are three different tetrameshing algorithms available. Select Optimize Mesh Quality.
For a detailed explanation of each option, please refer to the online help.

13. Set the tetrahedral core growth rate to Interpolate. This avoids the problem of generating
 tetrahedral elements that are too large at the center of the core mesh.
14. Click mesh to create the CFD mesh. When this task is finished, two collectors are automatically
created: CFD_bl001 and CFD_tetcore001.

15. Click return to close the panel.

Step 5: Mask Some of the Mesh to View the Interior Elements and Boundary
Layers

You can mask the mesh by using the shortcut key F5, and select elements to be masked. The following is
a snapshot. Observe the excellent mesh quality produced.

2. You can also use the Hidden Line panel to view the interior of a solid mesh. Click BCs >

Check > Hidden Lines to access the panel.

3. Leave the title field blank and check the option for yz plane. This defines the yz plane as the cutting

plane.
4. Leave the options for trim planes and clip boundary elements checked on and click show plot.

This automatically places the cutting plane at the center of the model. Notice that the display of the
elements has been collapsed so that the nodes lie on the cutting plane.

5. Left-click in the graphics area where the cutting plane is, hold down the left mouse button, and drag
 the mouse. Notice that the cutting plane moves.

6. Next, uncheck the option for clip boundary elements and click show plot.

Notice how the elements are displayed completely.

7. Drag the placement of the cutting plane. Experiment with the other cutting planes and the trim

planes option to see how they affect the plot.

8. Click return to exit the panel and clear the plot.

Step 6: Organize the Model

In this section, you will define mesh surface regions used to specify boundary conditions in any CFD code
(FLUENT, StarCD, CFX, and so on). For example, assume that you are going to export the mesh for
FLUENT. For this model, you need to create three collectors to place the boundaries: inflow, outflow, and
wall. You have selected two new names that are not already in your database and at the same time are
compatible with the prefixes required by FLUENT to recognize boundary types according to their names.

You are going to reuse the surface mesh contained in collector wall because this mesh remained
unchanged by the CFD mesh process as this component was specified as “fixed with boundary layer.”
However, the surface areas associated with the original collectors inlet and outlets have been completely
regenerated and you need to create new components that will be named inflow and outflow,
respectively.
1. Using the Model browser, rename the collector CFD_tetcore001 to fluid. This collector will hold all
the 3D volume elements.

2. Click BCs > Organize to move all the elements from the collector CFD_bl001 to collector fluid.
3. Click BCs > Faces to automatically generate the collector ^faces containing all the external faces of
the elements in collector fluid.

4. Click BCs > Components > Single to create two new components named inflow and outflow.
Now you are going to move some of the elements from the collector ^faces to the collectors inflow and
outflow.

5. In the Model browser, isolate the ^faces component.

6. Click BCs > Organize and click one element on the inlet/inflow plane (the element will become
highlighted).

7. Click elems >> by face. All the elements in the collector ^faces on the inlet/inflow plane will be
selected.
8. Set the dest comp as inflow, and click move. Similarly, move the elements from ^faces associated
 with the outlets to the collector outflow.
9. Show the inflow and outflow components in the Model browser. When done, you will have all the
exterior surfaces colored according to the collectors where they have been placed as shown in the
following image.

10. The remaining elements in the collector ^faces are the same as in wall and you can discard them.

11. Delete both collectors ^faces and collector CFD_boundary_layer, which is now empty.

Step 7: Export Surface and Volume Mesh and Import this Mesh into FLUENT

1. Display only the components containing elements that have to be exported for FLUENT, the
components are: fluid, inflow, outflow and wall. All other components should not be visible.

2. Click the Export Solver Deck icon to open the Export tab.

3. Notice that the File Type is set to CFD. Set the Solver Type to Fluent.

4. In the File field, click the file icon and specify a name and location for the file.

5. Click Export to export the file.

6. Select Yes to the first message that appears and No to the second message.

Step 8: Create a FLUENT Simulation Case

If you have access to FLUENT, you can import manifold.cas to create a new FLUENT simulation case
as follows

1. Start FLUENT 3d or 3ddp.

2. From the File menu, select Read, then Case.

3. Select manifold.cas.
 4. Click OK. After importing this file, you will observe that FLUENT has recognized the boundary
zones outflow, inflow and wall by name, and the 3D volume zone fluid. Zone interior-* is
automatically created by FLUENT containing all the interior faces shared by two 3D cells.

5. Select Define, then select Boundary Conditions.

6. Select zone inflow, and set the appropriate boundary condition such as mass-flow-inlet and
velocity inlet.

7. Change the boundary condition type for the remaining surface zones, outflow and wall.
Engineering Solutions allows you to perform the most time consuming tasks of generating the
volume mesh and identifying the boundary zones. Now inside FLUENT the rest of the simulation
tasks can be executed easily.

Appendix: Boundary Layer Mesh with Distributed Thickness Ratio

The boundary layer type mesh generated in this tutorial was generated with uniform thickness. This is

OK for a model like this manifold as long as the total boundary layer thickness does not lead to collision or
interference that can occur when the sum of the BL thickness is close to or larger than the distance

separating boundary layer walls. When such collision or interference occurs you have the following options:

• Decrease the global boundary layer thickness (throughout / for all the BL surfaces)
• Use distributed boundary layer thickness ratios on nodes or collectors/components. This is a
capability in Altair HyperMesh that allows you to specify a local value of boundary layer thickness by
specifying the ratio of the local value to the global value. For example, if the ratio specified on
certain nodes or all the nodes belonging to a collector is equal to 0.1, then the boundary layer
thickness generated around those nodes will be only 10 percent of the global boundary layer thickness.
• The CFD user profile has a tool (Generate BL Thickness) to generate automatically “distributed
boundary layer thickness ratios” at each node of the surface mesh so that boundary layer collision
is avoided when using the global or nominal boundary layer thickness. The usage of this tool is
explained in Tutorial CFD-1100.
In this appendix you are going to use option B to manually change the BL thickness ratio.

Step A: Prepare data to generate a CFD mesh (boundary layer and core mesh)

using a distributed boundary layer thickness

1. Create a new component named wall_thinner_bl, and move elements from wall to this new
collector as shown in the following image.

2. Click BCs > Check > Edge, then select the collectors wall, wall_thinner_bl, inlet and outlets.

3. Click find edges. A message indicating that no edges were found will appear on the status bar.

4. Click Mesh > Volume Mesh 3D > CFD tetramesh to access the CFD Tetramesh panel.

5. Leave the default Smooth BL option unchanged.

6. In the BL parameters subpanel, select the options to specify the boundary layer and tetrahedral

core:

• Number of Layers = 5
• First layer thickness = 0.5
• BL growth rate= 1.1

7. Select the type of tetrameshing algorithm: Simple Pyramid, Smooth Pyramid, All Prism or

All Tetras

8. Ensure the BL only checkbox is not checked.

9. In the Tetramesh parameters subpanel, set the Pyramid transition ratio = 0.8

10. Select the tetrahedral core growth rate switch to Interpolate. This avoids the problem of generating
tetrahedral elements that are too large at the center of the core mesh.

Step B: Define a distributed boundary layer thickness on certain components

1. In the BL parameters subpanel, ensure that the BL reduction and Pre calc checkboxes are checked
click Manual.

2. The Distributed BL Thickness Ratio dialog opens. This dialog enables you to specify distributed

thickness ratios for groups of nodes or whole components. You can choose either Nodes or Components

by selecting the associated radio button.

3. Select Components.

4. Click Select Components and select the component wall_thinner_bl.

5. Specify a thickness ratio of value 0.3 and click Assign.

6. Notice that the summary message now indicates the number of BL thickness ratio loads on

components:
 When the models are more complex it is useful to display surface contours of BL thickness ratio values.

7. Click Contours of BL Thickness Ratio, and the Contour panel will be automatically displayed.
8. Click contour to inspect the distribution of BL Thickness Ratio on the surface of your domain and

click return when you are finished. Click Close to close the dialog.

9. Go to the CFD Tetramesh panel, Boundary selection subpanel. Here all the elements/components
that define the surface area on which you need to generate boundary layers will be selected.

This selection is done with the With BL (fixed) selector.

10. Click comps under With BL (fixed) and select the collectors wall and wall_thinner_bl.
11. Select all the elements/components that define the surface area on which you do not want to

generate boundary layers. This selection is done with the W/o BL (float) selector.

12. Click comps and select the collectors, inlet and outlets.
13. The switch below the W/o BL (float) selector is set to Remesh. This means that the meshes in

the zones defined by collector’s inlet and outlets will be remeshed after being deformed by the boundary

layer growth from adjacent surface areas.

14. Click mesh to create the CFD mesh. When this task is finished, note the two collectors automatically
created: CFD_boundary_layer and CFD_Tetramesh_core.

15. Inspect the relative size of the boundary layer thickness by masking some of the elements as shown
in the following image. This image shows that the BL thickness on component wall_thinner_bl

is only 30 percent of the global BL thickness.

The manual approach followed previously is useful when you need to reduce the BL thickness
throughout a component, or at a clearly identified group of nodes.

When you have a very complicated geometry and BL collision is likely to occur, the best approach

is to use the Generate BL Thickness tool to generate automatically “distributed boundary layer

thickness ratios” at each node of the surface mesh. This tool performs a collision study and assigns

a BL thickness ratio to each node of the surface mesh that requires a reduction of the baseline BL

thickness to avoid collision. Usage of this tool is explained in Tutorial CFD-1100.

The previous steps illustrate simple and effective steps to reduce the BL thickness on surface

components. This approach is very easy to use and effective when you know how much you want to

increase or decrease the BL thickness all over a component. A similar approach is followed to increase/

decrease BL thickness on groups of nodes.

CFD-1200: CFD Meshing with Automatic BL Thickness Reduction

In this tutorial, you will learn to:

• Generate meshes for most CFD codes using the CFD Tetramesh panel.
• Generate boundary layer type meshes with arbitrary number of layers and thickness distribution
in domains defined by surfaces that are very close to one another in some areas. More
specifically, in some areas the clearance or separation of bounding surfaces is not enough to
accommodate the user specified nominal boundary layer thickness.
• Generate a distributed thickness “loading” that prevents boundary layer interference/collision in
zones where the distance between opposing walls is too small to accommodate the baseline or
nominal boundary layer thickness.
The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the CFD User Profile

1. From the menu bar, select Preferences > User Profiles or click on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select Engineering Solutions > CFD.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Model File

1. On the Standard toolbar, click the Open Model icon.

2. Select the manifold_inner_cylinder.hm file.

3. Click Open to load this file containing the surface mesh.

4. Inspect the surface elements that will be used to generate the volume mesh. You would like to
generate boundary layers on all the surface elements contained in components wall and
wall_cyl. However, there is an area close to the end of wall_cyl where the clearance between
wall and wall_cyl is very small. This can be easily observed in this case by changing the
visibility of component wall, as shown in the following image.
 In more complex models it is not possible to visually identify all the zones where there is not
enough space to growth the “baseline” or nominal boundary layer as specified in terms of the
number of layers, first layer thickness and growth rate. This is not a problem because the
automatic distributed thickness “loading” computation takes into account all possible
interference cases. This is demonstrated in this tutorial.

Step 3: Check That the Surface Elements Define a Closed Volume

1. Click Mesh > Check > Components > Edges.

2. Click comps and select all collectors that define the domain’s surface, namely inlet, outlets,
wall and wall_cyl.

3. Click find edges. A message indicating that no edges were found will appear on the status bar.

4. Toggle the free edges switch to T-connections.

5. Select the components again and click find edges. The status bar will display, “No T-connected
edges were found.”

Step 4: Generate a BL Distributed Thickness Loading to Prevent Boundary

Layer Interference

1. Click Mesh > Volume Mesh 3D > CFD Tetramesh.

2. Click the Boundary selection subpanel.

3. Under the heading With BL (fixed), click comps and select the collectors wall and wall_cyl.

4. Under the heading W/o BL (float), click comps and select the collectors inlet and outlets.
5. Ensure that the switch below the W/o BL (float) selector is set to Remesh. This means that
the surface meshes associated with those components will be remeshed or rebuilt after
shrinking due to boundary layer growth from adjacent boundary layer components.

6. Select Smooth BL.

7. Click the BL parameters subpanel.

8. Set the following fields:

• Number of Layers = 5
• First layer thickness = 0.5
• BL growth rate = 1.2 (This non-dimensional factor controls the change in layer thickness
from one layer to the next).
• BL hexa transition mode = All Prisms (Prism to all Layers). This means that if there
 are any quad elements in the surface mesh, those will be split into two trias each so that
there is no need to transition from quad faces to tria faces when transitioning from the last
boundary layer to the tetrahedral core. This option is very important when there are quad
elements on areas with (low) distributed BL thickness ratio, because in such areas the
thickness of the transition elements (for example, simple pyramid) was not taken into
account when doing the interference study to assign distributed BL thickness ratio to those
elements.
9. Check the box for Pre calc and then click Auto. The Generate Boundary Layer distributed
thickness values dialog opens. Notice that the four components selected in the Boundary
selection subpanel are already added.

10. Set the correct Bound Type for each one of the selected components. You want to generate a
boundary layer from components wall and wall_cyl, therefore, you will leave wall as their Bound
Type. Also verify that the Bound Type of components inlet and outlets is set to in/outlet as
shown, following:

A component with Bound Type: wall indicates that you are going to generate a boundary layer
mesh on the component later on when you generate the mesh. Therefore, the same component
should be consistently specified with the comps selector for the With BL (fixed or float) in the
Boundary selection subpanel.
A component with a Bound Type: slip, symmetry, in/outlet, or farfield indicates that you
are NOT going to generate a boundary layer mesh on the component. Therefore, when you
generate the mesh this component should be consistently specified with the comps selector for
the W/o BL (fixed or float) in the Boundary selection subpanel.

11. Specify the Boundary Layer options as shown in the following image.
• The first three fields are set in the BL parameters subpanel and cannot be changed here.
All layers will have the same thickness except in area affected by the distributed thickness
"loading" and also mesh smoothing operations such as hyperbolic smoothing at corners.
• Specify a Minimum (Tetrahedral-Core / Boundary-Layer) thickness ratio value of 2.0.
This means that in areas where there is not enough room to grow the nominal BL (5 layers
starting with a thickness of 0.5 and increasing with a grow rate of 1.2), the boundary layers’
thickness will be reduced so that the tetrahedral core thickness is approximately at least 2.0
times the total boundary layer thickness, except for mesh smoothing operations such as
hyperbolic smoothing at corners and convex/concave areas.
• The last option, Bound Layer thickness at corners, is a coefficient that controls the
hyperbolic growth where walls make an angle. The smaller this value is, the thinner the total
BL thickness is in such areas; values less than 1 produce thinner layers and values greater
than 1 produce thicker layers.
 Now you are ready to generate the Distributed BL Thickness loading. Make sure that none of
the elements specified in the boundary collectors are masked. If they are masked an error
message will indicate that there is a discrepancy between the total number of elements in the
components that you specified and the number of tria3/quad4 elements found (displayed). If
you have masked elements, you can use mask (F5), and press unmask all.

12. Click Generate Distributed BL Thickness Ratio. If the model already contains boundary layer
thickness ratios, then a pop-up message box will ask you if you want to keep such loads or if
you want to clear/discard them. Most of the time you will want to clear the existing boundary
layer thickness ratios; click Yes. In some special cases you may want to keep them, if more
than one loading value is specified for a node, the minimum value is used when generating the
mesh.

13. After a few seconds you will see a pop-up message indicating the number of distributed
boundary layer thickness values included in collector ^CFD_BL_Thickness.

14. Click Close in the Generate Boundary Layer distributed thickness values dialog.

Step 5: Generate the Boundary Layer and Tetrahedral Core Mesh

1. In the CFD Tetramesh panel, click the Tetramesh parameters subpanel.

2. Set the switch for the tetrahedral mesh generation algorithm to Optimize Mesh Quality.

3. Ensure that the tetrahedral grow rate is switched to Interpolate.

4. Click mesh to generate the mesh. If collectors CFD_bl001 and CFD_tetcore001 are present,
you will be asked if you want to delete the elements in those collectors. Almost always you
select Yes. When this task is finished two collectors are created: CFD_bl001 and
CFD_tetcore001.

Step 6: Mask Elements to Inspect the Boundary Layers’ Thickness on Thinner

Areas
 1. Select the XZ Left Plane View icon .

2. Access the Mask panel by using the shortcut key F5.

3. Select elements to be masked by pressing SHIFT and the left mouse button, then move the
cursor so that the rubber band covers the upper half of the model.

4. Click mask.
5. Click the XY Top Plane View icon .

6. Zoom in into the area where the bounding surfaces come close together. The following image
illustrates how BL interference has been avoided by reducing the BL thickness.

7. Click return to close the Mask panel.

Step 7: Arrange Volume and Surface Components Before Exporting the Mesh
for CFD Solvers

First you need to put in the same component all the elements that represent a single fluid and/or solid
domain. In this case you have a single fluid domain, therefore you proceed as follows:

1. Rename the CFD_Tetramesh_core component. Typically, select a name “fluid*,” for example,
fluid. In the Model browser, select CFD_tetcore001, right-click, select Rename, and then type
the new name, fluid.

2. Click BCs > Organize.

3. Click elems >> by collector and select the collector CFD_bl001.

4. In the dest component field, select fluid.

5. Click move and then click return. Now you have all the volume elements in component fluid. The
surface mesh of this component is typically different from the surface mesh that was used to define
the boundary of the domain. For this reason, and to have consistent surface zones to impose
boundary conditions in most CFD solvers, you are going to create new boundary components that
will be used when exporting the mesh for the CFD solver of your choice. To accomplish this you first
extract the surface mesh of component fluid. You do this by generating the surface elements.

6. Click BCs > Faces.

7. Select the component fluid, and click find faces. All boundary faces are placed in the component
^faces.

8. Create new, empty components to place the elements from ^faces so that when these components
are later exported, they can be used to set a boundary condition in your CFD solver. In the Model
browser, right-click Component, and then select Create. The Entity Editor opens.
9. For Name enter wall_exterior. Leave the Type as None.

10. Create three more empty components with the names wall_cylinder, inlet_annulus and
outlets3.
11. Move the elements from component ^faces into the newly created components. This is done for
clarity; however, most of the time you create one fewer component and you rename ^faces which
retains the remaining elements after you move elements to the newly created surface components.
Organize the components by using the Organize panel. Select BCs > Organize.

12. Set dest component to wall_exterior, then pick one element on the exterior wall surface in the
^faces component.

13. Click the elems switch and select by face. This will recursively select all the elements attached to
the picked element as long as the adjacent elements are within a break angle less or equal to the
value specified in the feature angle field (Preferences > Geometry Options > Mesh subpanel).
The surface mesh in ^faces is such that the zones that you want to organize/move make an angle
close to 90 degrees and their boundaries, therefore this is a very easy job to do with a default
feature angle of 20 or 30 degrees.

14. Having selected all the elements that should go to component wall_exterior, click move.
15. Now set the dest component to outlets3 and pick at least one element on each one of the three
separate outlets as shown in the following image.

16. Click the elems switch and select by face.

17. Having the elements on the three outlets selected, press move and those elements are moved to
component outlets3. Set dest component to inlet_annulus and pick one element, as shown in
the following image.
 18. Right-click the elems switch and select by face.
19. Having all the elements on the inlet annulus selected, press move and those elements are moved to
component inlet_annulus. Now that all the remaining elements in component ^faces are the
elements that you want to move to component wall_cylinder.

20. Set dest component to wall_cylinder.

21. Click elems and in the panel area and select by collector.

22. Select the component ^faces.

23. Click move and then click return. The elements are moved to component wall_cylinder as shown
in the following image.

As mentioned previously, more often than not it is easier to rename/recolor component ^faces.

Step 8: Exporting the Mesh

1. Verify that only the components that you want to export are displayed. All other components should

NOT be displayed, as illustrated in the following image of the Model browser.

2. Click the Export Solver Deck icon to open the Export tab. Select the CFD file format of your

choice to export the grid or mesh.

Summary

Engineering Solutions allowed you to generate high-quality boundary layer meshes on parts where
the clearance or separation of the bounding surfaces is not enough to accommodate the user
specified nominal boundary layer thickness. To accomplish this you first used the CFD utility
Generate Distributed BL Thickness Ratio to generate load collector ^CFD_BL_Thickness. This
load collector is then used when you enable distributed thickness. As shown in the cross-sectional
images, the mesh is very smooth, free of collisions, and is of excellent quality.
CFD-1300: Plane 2D Meshing with Boundary Layers

In this tutorial, you will learn to:

• Generate 2D boundary layer type meshes with an arbitrary number of layers and thickness
distribution in domains defined by edges.
• Generate 2D boundary layer type meshes in areas where the clearance or separation of
bounding edges is not enough to accommodate the user specified nominal boundary layer
thickness / number or layers.
The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the CFD User Profile

1. From the menu bar, select Preferences > User Profiles or click on the Standard toolbar.
2. Select Engineering Solutions > CFD.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Model File

1. Click the Open Model icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select the manifold_inner_cylinder_2d.hm file.

3. Click Open to load the file containing the edges.

4. Inspect the edges elements that will be used to generate the volume mesh. The boundary mesh
should only consist of PLOTEL (elem type) elements. You want to generate boundary layers on
all the edges contained in the collectors called wall and inner wall.

Step 3: Check That All the Elements in Collectors Wall, Inner Wall, Inlet, and
Outlets Define a Closed Loop (This Step is Optional)

Usually, this step is not necessary because the collectors containing edge elements (PLOTEL) are
extracted from 2D surface meshes that naturally have free edges forming “closed” loops. However,
there is a possibility that there may be duplicate nodes, and for this reason it is advisable to
 perform the following test:

1. Click BCs > Check > Edge.

2. Click comps.
3. Select the collectors wall, inner_wall, Inlet and Outlet.

4. Click select.

5. You need to ensure that the tolerance value is smaller than the minimum element length. To do
this, first find the minimum element length. Click Mesh > Check > Elements > Check
Elements.

6. Select 1-d.

7. Click length. A message indicates the minimum element length is 3.09, therefore you can
safely use a tolerance of three.

8. Click return to close out of the current panel.

9. In the Edge panel, enter 3.0 in the tolerance = field and then click Preview Equiv. A
message indicating that “0 nodes were found” will appear on the status bar.

Step 4: Generate a 2D BL Mesh

1. Click Mesh > Surface Mesh 2D > 2D Mesh with BL.

2. Click the 2D Native BL (planar) tab.

3. Set the default values to be assigned when adding collectors:

• 1st Layer Thickness = 0.5

• Growth Rate = 1.1 (This non-dimensional factor controls the change in layer thickness from one

layer to the next)

• Bound Type = Wall (Will generate a boundary layer mesh)
• Number of boundary layers = 6 (value must be >= 0, as a zero value leads to no boundary

layers even when Wall type is specified)

4. Uncheck the Retain node seeding on edge w/o BL option.

5. Click Add collector.

6. In the selector panel, click comps.

7. Select all four components.

8. Click select.
9. Click proceed.

10. In the 2D Boundary Layer Mesh window, all the selected components will be displayed in the

Component list, as shown below:

11. Default values of boundary layer mesh (1st Layer Thickness, Growth Rate, and Bound Type)

will be assigned to each component. To remove one or more components from the group, select those

components from the list and click Remove.

12. In the 2D Boundary Layer Mesh window, set the Bound Type value for components Inlet and

Outlet as In/Outlet.

The objective is to not generate boundary layers along the Inlet and Outlet components.

Note: Those elements may be remeshed based on the adjacent elements’ size.

13. Click Generate 2D BL Mesh to generate the mesh. When this task is finished, two collectors are

automatically created: 2DBLMesh and 2DCoreMesh, as shown in the following image. Note that the
quality of the mesh may not be very good, as described, following. In the next steps you will change

some default parameters to allow boundary node insertion and movement.

As indicated previously, components with Bound type In/Outlet will be remeshed based on the

adjacent elements’ size. The two following figures illustrate the case where an inlet/outlet is defined

with a single large element, after meshing the element size in this area has been reduced to obtain
a smooth element size transition, leading to an excellent mesh quality.
Step 5: Changing Mesh Quality

Often it may happen that boundary layer elements will have bad quality due to high aspect ratio.
Such elements are created because of the large boundary edge length as shown in the following
image.

This problem can be resolved by limiting the maximum perimeter elements’ aspect ratio. The
maximum boundary elements’ aspect ratio can be achieved using two approaches:

• By addition of new nodes on the boundary / perimeter.

• By node movement on the boundary / perimeter.
1. Activate the Allow boundary node insertion checkbox.
Refine the boundary edges by insertion of nodes on boundary edges. New node insertion is
controlled by the specified maximum perimeter element aspect ratio.

Or

Activate the Allow boundary node movement checkbox.

This option is used to move boundary nodes along the original boundary. Boundary node
movement is controlled by the specified maximum perimeter element aspect ratio.
 Enter the maximum perimeter element aspect ratio as shown in the following image:

2. Click Generate 2D BL Mesh to generate the mesh. If the model already contains collectors
2DBLMesh and 2DCoreMesh, then a pop-up message will ask you if you want to delete
components 2DBLMesh and 2DCoreMesh before mesh creation or if you want to add newly
created elements to the same collectors. Most of the time you will want to clear the existing
mesh: click Yes. In some special cases you may want to keep them.

When this task is finished, two collectors 2DBLMesh and 2DCoreMesh are updated with new
elements as shown in the following image:

3. You can check the element’s aspect ratio by using the shortcut key F10 and selecting the 2-d
page.
When the perimeter has sharp angles as shown in the following image, triangular elements are
added to the boundary mesh to achieve a smoother transition of element sizes, and mesh
smoothing also contributes to increase the mesh quality.

Also note that the automatic mesh generator performs a collision detection and avoids
boundary layer interference by reducing the boundary layer thickness, as shown in the following
inset:
Step 6: Use a Distributed Boundary Layer Thickness to Generate a Boundary
Layer and Core

The boundary layer type mesh generated in this tutorial was generated with uniform thickness. This
is OK for a model like this manifold as long as the total boundary layer thickness does not lead to
collision or interference that can occur when the sum of the BL thickness is close to or larger than
the distance separating opposite walls. When such collision or interference occurs you have the
following options:

• Decrease the global boundary layer thickness (throughout / for all the BL edges).
• Decrease locally the boundary layer thickness (BL edges around critical zones only).
Decrease locally the boundary layer thickness
1. In the 2D Boundary Layer Mesh window, click Reject to remove the created mesh. Collectors
2DBLMesh and 2DCoreMesh will be deleted.

2. Click Close to close the pop-up window.

Create new components (empty) to place the PLOTEL elements at critical zone (area
where boundary layer elements may lead to collision)

3. Open the Model browser.

4. Click BCs > Components > Single.

5. Enter name as wall_critical.

6. Click Create and then Close.

7. Click BCs > Organize.

8. Select the boundary edges (PLOTEL) around the area where boundary layer elements may lead
to collision. Refer to the following image for element selection.
9. Set the dest group/dest component switch to dest component = and select the destination
collector as wall_critical.

10. Click move to move the selected PLOTEL elements to the destination collector.

11. Click Mesh > Surface Mesh 2D > 2D Mesh with BL.

12. In the 2D Native BL (planar) tab, click Add collector.

13. In the panel area, click comps.

14. Select the component wall_critical.

15. Click select.

16. Click proceed. The component wall_critical has been added to the component list.

17. Set 1st Layer Thickness of component wall_critical to 0.4.

18. Click Generate 2D BL Mesh to generate the mesh. When this task is finished, two collectors
are automatically created: 2DBLMesh and 2DCoreMesh.

19. Now you can zoom in around component wall_critical and notice how boundary layer
interference has been avoided by reducing the total boundary layer thickness as shown in the
following image:
Summary

In this tutorial you generated 2D meshes with boundary layers on a complex cross section. You
obtained a high quality mesh by allowing boundary node insertion and movement. Engineering
Solutions automatically cuts back the number of layers when boundary layer collision occurs, thus
producing a consistent mesh even in narrow areas. In narrow passages you can also reduce the
total boundary layer thickness by starting with a smaller first layer thickness and/or a smaller
growth rate.
CFD-1400: Wind Tunnel Mesh

In this tutorial you will generate a wind tunnel type mesh for external CFD analysis. The mesh consists
of a Cartesian hexa-mesh for the far field, and a hybrid grid (tetras with boundary layers) in the
vicinity of the object.

The tutorial includes the following steps:

• Setting the user profile

• Opening the model file to be used
• Using the wind tunnel functionality
• Surface meshing
• Volume meshing using the CFD Tetramesh panel
• Organizing the model and preparation for CFD export
• Export for FLUENT

Step 1: Load the CFD User Profile

1. From the menu bar, select Preferences > User Profiles or click on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select Engineering Solutions > CFD.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Model File

1. From the Standard toolbar, click the Open Model icon .

2. Select the airplane.hm file.

3. Click Open to load the file.

Step 3: Use the Wind Tunnel Mesh Tool

1. Click Mesh > Volume Mesh 3D > Wind Tunnel. The Wind-Tunnel tab opens, displaying
instructions for using this tool.

2. Enter values for your model as shown in the following image:

3. Click Generate. A pop-up message will display the estimated number of hexahedral elements
that will be created with the specified minimum hex cell size.

4. Click Yes on the pop-up message. The Wind Tunnel Mesh tool generates hexa, pyramids and
shell elements and groups them into several collectors.
 You may need to rotate the model to obtain this view

Step 4: Generate a Shell Mesh on the Airplane

1. In the Model browser, expand Component, right-click plane, and select Isolate.

2. Click Mesh > Surface Mesh 2D > Automesh. This automatically loads the surface deviation
subpanel.
3. With surfs selected in the toggle, hold SHIFT and drag a box around the entire visible airplane
geometry. You may need to resize the display first.

4. For element size =, enter 10.

5. For growth rate =, enter 1.2.

6. For min elem size =, enter 2.

7. For max deviation =, enter 0.1.

8. For max feature angle =, enter 15.

9. Set mesh type to trias.

10. Ensure toggles are set to elems to surf comp and first order.

11. Click mesh. A message on the status bar indicates the number of elements created.
Step 5: Mesh the Box Sym Component With an Element Size of 20

1. In the Model browser, show the elements and geometry for box_sym.

2. In the Automesh panel, click the size and bias subpanel.

3. With the surfs toggle active, click any visible part of the box to select it.

4. For element size =, enter 20 and set the mesh type to trias.

5. For map, activate the checkboxes for size and skew.

6. Click mesh. The component is meshed. A message on the status bar indicates the number of
elements created.

7. Double-click return to return to the main menu.

Step 6: Equivalence Nodes in box_sym

1. In the Model browser, right-click the component symp and select Show.
2. Click BCs > Check > Edge.

3. Click comps and select the components box_sym and symp.

4. For tolerance =, enter 0.1.

5. Click preview equiv. A message in the status bar indicates the number of nodes found.

6. Click equivalence. The nodes are equivalenced.

7. Click return to close the panel.

Step 7: Create New Component box_ground

1. Click BCs > Components > Single.

2. In the Name field, enter box_ground.

3. Click Color and select magenta.

4. Click Create. The new collector has now been created.

5. Close the dialog.

Step 8: Generate a Surface and a Tria Mesh on the Bottom of the Box

1. In the Model browser, turn off the element display for symp and turn on the display for
ground.
 2. Click Mesh > Surface Mesh 2D > Surface/Mesh > Spline.

3. Set the selector toggle to nodes.

4. Click the nodes selector to open the extended entity selection menu and pick by path.

5. Set the second toggle to surface only.

6. Pick the nodes by path on the perimeter of the box bottom, as in the following image:

7. Click create.

8. Click return.

9. Click Mesh > Surface Mesh 2D > Automesh.

10. Select the size and bias subpanel, ensure the selector is set to surfs and the element size
field is set to 20.

11. In the graphics area, click the box_ground surface.

12. Click mesh. A message on the status bar will indicate the number of elements created.

13. Double-click return to return to the main menu.

Step 9: Equivalence Nodes to Achieve a Closed Volume

1. Click BCs > Check > Edge.

2. Click comps and select the components plane, box_sym, ground, trias_hexas_pyras, and
box_ground.

3. Set the tolerance field to 0.1.

4. Click preview equiv.

5. Click equivalence.

6. Click return.
7. In the Model browser, turn off the display of ground, and turn on the element display of
trias_hexas_pyras.
 8. Return to the Edges panel.

9. Hold SHIFT and drag a box around all the visible components to select them all.

10. Click find edges. A message on the status bar indicates that no edges were found.
11. Select the components again and click preview equiv. A message on the status bar indicates
that 0 nodes were found. This ensures that the volume is enclosed, which is necessary for the
following tetra meshing step.

12. Click return.

Step 10: Mesh the Closed Volume

1. Click Mesh > Volume Mesh 3D > CFD tetramesh.

2. Under the With BL (fixed) header, click the comps selector and select the component plane.

3. Under the W/o BL (fixed) header, click the comps selector and select the components
box_sym, box_ground and trias_hexas_pyras.

4. Click the BL parameters subpanel.

5. For Number of Layers = enter 3.

6. For First layer thickness = enter 0.7.

7. On the Tetramesh parameters subpanel, set the toggle to Interpolate.

8. Click mesh. The mesh may take a few minutes. When the mesh is complete, a message in the
status bar will indicate the number of nodes and elements created. Note that two new
components, CFD_tetcore001 and CFD_bl001, appear in the Model browser.

9. Click return.

Step 11: Inspect the Mesh

1. Click Mesh > Check > Hidden Lines. In the panel, deactivate the clip boundary elements
checkbox.
 2. Click show plot and then check and then uncheck the xy plane, yz plane and xz plane
checkboxes to display the model in different views.

3. Rotate and inspect the mesh from the side of the model.
4. Click and hold one of the corners of the model. While keeping the mouse button down, drag the
corner of the model forth and back to sweep the cutting plane.

5. Click return.

Step 12: Organize Faces

1. In the Model browser, turn off the display for plane, box_sym, trias_hexas_pyras and
box_ground so that only CFD_tetcore001 and CFD_bl001 are visible.

2. Click BCs > Faces.

3. Hold SHIFT and drag a box around the visible components to select them.

4. Click find faces. Note that a new component named ^faces appears in the Model browser.

5. Click return.
6. In the Model browser, turn off the display of the elements of CFD_tetramesh_core and
CFD_boundary_layer.

7. Click BCs > Organize.

8. Click elems and select on plane.

9. Pick three nodes on the ^faces component, on the face that intersects the airplane model. A
good way to determine which area to select is to isolate the display of the box_sym geometry.
This will show you the face to focus on. Turn the display of the ^faces component back on, and
select your three nodes.

10. Click select entities.

11. Click dest component = and select symp.

12. Click move.

13. Click elems >> on plane.

14. Pick three nodes on the bottom of the ^faces component. A good way to determine which area
to select is to isolate the display of the box_ground geometry. This will show you the face to
focus on. Turn the display of the ^faces component back on, and select your three nodes.
 15. Click select entities.

16. Click dest component = and select ground.

17. Click move.

18. Click return to close the panel.

Step 13: Delete Collectors

1. In the Model browser, right-click the component ^faces, and select Delete.

2. In the pop-up dialog, click Yes to confirm the deletion.

3. In the Model browser, turn on the display of CFD_tetcore001 and CFD_bl001.

4. Press the CTRL key and select edges_xz and edges_xy in the Model browser.

5. Right-click and select Delete.

6. In the pop-up dialog, click Yes to confirm the deletion.

7. In the same way, also delete trias_hexas_pyras, box_sym and box_ground.

Step 14: Organize Components

1. Click BCs > Organize.

2. Click elems and select by collector.

3. Select CFD_tetcore001 and CFD_bl001.

4. Click select.
 5. Click dest component = and select fluid_hex.

6. Click move. When the move is complete, nothing should be visible in the graphic area.

7. Click return.

Step 15: Use the Model Browser to Rename and Delete Components

1. In the Model browser, display elements for fluid_hex.

2. Right-click fluid_hex in the Model browser and select Rename.

3. Enter the new name as fluid.

4. Select CFD_tetcore001 and CFD_bl001 and delete them using the process described in Step
14.
5. Right-click Component and select Show to show all remaining components in the graphic
area.

Step 16: Export the File as .cas

1. Click Export Solver Deck .

2. Ensure that CFD is selected for the File Type, and pick Fluent for the Solver Type.
3. Use the File field to navigate to the destination folder and enter the name wind_tunnel_mesh.

4. Click Export. A dialog appears. After reading the dialog, click Yes.

5. In the pop-up dialog that appears, you are asked whether to reuse the setup from an existing
FLUENT file. Since you just generated the grid and do not have a set up file (*.cas), click No.
It may take a few minutes for the file to be created.

6. When the file creation is complete, a pop-up window appears. Click OK.
CFD-1500: Hexcore Meshing with Boundary Layer

In this tutorial you will learn how to generate a hexcore mesh with a boundary layer. Included are the
following steps:

• Tria surface meshing

• Boundary layer generation
• Generation of the hexcore mesh, pyramid elements and the tetra mesh
• Preparation of the model for the export
The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the CFD User Profile

1. From the menu bar, select Preferences > User Profiles or click on the Standard toolbar.
2. Select Engineering Solutions > CFD.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Model File

1. Click the Open Model icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select the ujoint_cfd.hm file.

3. Click Open to load the file.

Step 3: Generate a Mesh on the Surface

1. In the Model browser, expand Component, right-click on it and select Show.

2. Click Mesh > Surface Mesh 2D > Automesh.

3. Click the size and bias subpanel.
 4. Set the element size = field to 5.0.

5. Set the mesh type to trias.

6. Ensure that both the size and skew checkboxes are activated.

7. Ensure toggles are set to elems to surf comp and first order.

8. Click surfs and selected all.

9. Click mesh. A message on the status bar indicates the number of elements created.

10. Double-click return to close the panels.

Step 4: Mesh the Hex-Core

1. Click Mesh > Volume Mesh 3D > Hex-core.

2. Enter the parameters as shown in the image below:

3. Checking the box for Generate exterior tetrahedral mesh and Boundary Layer makes the

bottom part of the tab editable. Enter the Number of layers as three, the First layer thickness as

0.4 and the Growth rate as 1.2.

4. Under the header With boundary layer, click Components and select the component wall.

5. Under the header W/o boundary layer, click Components and select inflow and outflow.
6. Click Generate just above the Report area. If a message appears, select Yes. After the meshing
finishes, a message appears stating that additional components have been created.
 7. Check the Model browser to see all the new components created.

8. Press F5 to open the Mask panel. While holding the shift key down, draw a box around roughly half

of the model, and click mask. This will display the inside of the model.

9. Click return to close the panel.

Step 5: Prepare the Model for Export

1. In the Model browser, right-click Component and select Create. The Entity Editor opens.

2. For Name enter fluid. Leave the Type as None.

3. Right-click Component again select Show to remove the masking effect.

4. From the View menu, select Mask Browser.

5. Display only the volume elements by clicking the "1" in the row for 3D elements.
6. Click Mesh > Organize.

7. Click elems and select displayed.

8. Click dest component = and select the fluid component.

9. Click move, and then click return.

10. In the Mask browser, set only the 2D elements to display.

11. Click Mesh > Delete > Elements. Click elems and select displayed.
12. Click delete entity. This deletes all 2D elements from the model.

13. While still in the Delete panel, click the toggle and switch from elems to comps. Click comps and

select the components that are now unused:

• CFD_boundary_layer
• hexcore
 • pyramids
• faces_pyra_hex
• tetras_exterior
14. Click delete entity and click return.

15. In the Model browser, right-click Component and select Show to display the remaining components.

Only volume elements are now available in the model.

16. Click BCs > Faces.

17. Click comps and select the fluid component.

18. Enter the tolerance as 0.010 and select find faces. Click return to close the panel.

19. Click BCs > Organize.

20. Click elems and select the elements on the inlet.

21. Click dest component = and select the inflow component. Click move.

22. Click elems again and select the elements on the outlet.

23. Click dest component = and select the outflow component. Click move.

24. Click elems again, select by collector and select ^faces.

25. In the dest component = field, select wall and click move. This will move the remaining elements

in the ^faces component into the wall component.

26. In the Model browser, delete the ^faces component.

27. Display all the components and export the model to the CFD solver of your choice.
CFD-1600: Using Distributed Thickness for Varying Boundary Layer Thickness

In this tutorial you will learn how to

• Generate a structured quad surface mesh

• Adjust the boundary layer thickness manually
• Generate a hybrid grid (tetramesh with boundary layer)
• Export the model for a CFD solver of your choice
The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the CFD User Profile

1. From the menu bar, select Preferences > User Profiles or click on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select Engineering Solutions > CFD.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Model File

1. Click the Open Model icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select the wing.hm file.

3. Click Open to load the file.

4. In the Model browser, click Component and expand the folder, then right-click box and select
Hide.

5. Right-click plane and select Show.

Step 3: Generate a Mesh on the Surface

1. Click Mesh > Surface Mesh 2D > Automesh.

 2. Click the size and bias subpanel.

3. Set the element size = field to 5.0.

4. Set the mesh type to quads only.

5. Ensure that both the size and skew checkboxes are activated.

6. Ensure toggles are set to elems to surf comp and first order.
7. Click surfs. In the graphics area, use the Shift key and the left mouse button to draw a box around
the wing to select the entire image.

8. Click mesh. A message on the status bar indicates the number of elements created.

Step 4: Adjust the Node Seeding on Each Edge to Get a Structured Quad
Mesh

1. While in the density subpanel, change the elem density = field to 17.

2. Click edge just above the elem density field and graphically select both left-hand edges of the wing.
The entire edge is selected.

3. Rotate the model and repeat Step 2 for the other end.
 To get a structured quad mesh adjust the number of nodes on the edges in such a way so that two opposite edges have the

same number of nodes. See the image below:

4. Click edge next to adjust and select the edge as shown in the image below:
 5. Now adjust the node seeding on the two remaining edges (leading edge and training edge) to 47 to

get a uniform quad mesh.

6. Click mesh.

7. Click return to close the panel.

Step 5: Define the Region for a Thinner BL Thickness

1. Click BCs > Components > Single.

2. Enter the name of the new component as BL_thin and click Create and then Close.

3. Click BCs > Organize.

4. With elems highlighted, use the SHIFT key and the left mouse button to draw a box around a portion

of the elements on the wing (see the image below).

 5. Click dest component and select the component BL_thin.

6. Click move, and then click return.

Step 6: Mesh the Surface of the Box

1. In the Model browser, turn on the display of the box component, and then click F on the
keyboard to fit the model into the graphics region.

2. Click Mesh > Surface Mesh 2D > Automesh and then select the size and bias subpanel.
3. With surfs highlighted, select the six surfaces of the box.

4. Set the element size field to 30, and change the mesh type toggle to trias.

5. Click mesh.

6. Double-click return to close the panels.

Step 7: Volume Meshing

1. Click Mesh > Volume Mesh 3D > CFD tetramesh.

2. Click the Boundary selection subpanel. Under the heading With BL (fixed), click comps and
select the plane and BL_thin components.

3. Under the heading W/o BL (float), click comps and select the box components.
4. Click the BL parameters subpanel.

5. In the Number of Layers field, enter 4.

6. In the First layer thickness field, enter 0.3

7. Check the boxes for BL reduction and Pre calc and then click Manual to open the
Distributed BL Thickness Ratio dialog.

Note: In the dialog, you can select nodes or components, and

define a scaling factor for the boundary layer thickness at
this location. For example, a scaling factor of 0.5 will reduce
the BL thickness in this region to one half of the original BL
thickness.
8. In the dialog, click Components.

9. Click Select Components and select the component BL_thin.

10. Click proceed.

11. In the Thickness Ratio field, enter 0.1.

12. Click Assign, and then click Close. The defined scaling factor is now stored in the load collector
^CFD_BL_Thickness, as shown in the Model browser.

Note: For all of the nodes in the selected component BL_thin, the
boundary layer thickness will be reduced to 1/10 of its initial
size. A smooth thickness transition will be used.

13. In the Model browser, right-click the box component and select Hide. Right-click the load
collector ^CFD_BL_Thickness and select Show. Check the value of the scaling factor to make
sure it is correct and if it is attached to the correct component.

14. Click the Tetramesh parameters subpanel. Select Interpolate for the tetrameshing growth
algorithm behavior.

15. Click mesh. Two new components are generated containing the boundary layer elements and
tetra elements.
16. To check the result, mask parts of the mesh and compare the thickness of the boundary layer
for the plane component with the thickness of the BL_thin component. You can do this in the
Distance panel. You will see that the thickness ratio is 1/10, as expected.
 Due to smoothing algorithms for the boundary layer, the thickness ratios can differ from the
user-defined values, for some use cases.

Step 8: Prepare the Model for Export

1. In the Model browser, right-click Components and click Show to display all components.
2. Click BCs > Components > Single. Enter the new name as fluid.

3. Repeat Step 2 to create more collectors, with the names inflow, outflow, wall_wing and wall_slip.

4. Click the Mask tab, click the 1 in the row 3D elements to display only volume elements.

5. Click BCs > Organize.

6. Click elems and select displayed.

7. Click dest component and select the component fluid.

8. Click move, and then click return.

9. In the Mask tab, click the 1 in the row 2D elements to display only shell elements.
10. Click Mesh > Delete > Elements.

11. Click elems and select displayed.

12. Click delete entity and then click return.

13. In the Model browser, right-click fluids and select Make Current, and then right-click it again and

select Show.

14. Click BCs > Faces.

15. Click comps and select the fluid component. Click find faces and then click return to close the
panel.

16. A new component named ^faces is created and displayed in the Model browser. Right-click it and

select Isolate.

17. Click BCs > Organize.

18. Select the elements lying on the inflow boundary, and move them to the inflow component. The

easiest way to do this is to select a single element on the inflow boundary and then select by face from

the extended entity selector. Repeat this step selecting the elements on the outflow boundary, and
moving them to the outflow component.

Inflow boundary selected for the inflow component

19. Move the shell elements from the four other sides to the component wall_slip.

20. Move the shells on the wing profile to the wall_wing component. Click return to close the panel.
 21. The collector ^faces should now be empty and can be deleted by right-clicking it in the Model

browser.

22. Delete the other empty components - plane, box, BL_thin, CFD_bl001 and CFD_tetcore001.

Step 9: Export the Model

1. Right-click Components in the Model browser and select Show.

2. Click the Export Solver Deck icon and export the model for the CFD solver of your choice.
CFD-1700: Mapping CFD Results

This exercise will cover how to take results from a CFD analysis and apply them to a new model for
heat transfer or structural analysis. Using the linear interpolation tools within Engineering Solutions,
results from a CFD analysis can be transferred to be loads in an analysis to be run in Altair OptiStruct
or any other supported solver.
Typically, scalar results such as temperatures or pressures are mapped. Results must be in a Tecplot
file (*.tpl or *.dat). This exercise will demonstrate how Engineering Solutions has a very easy and
straightforward way to transfer loads from CFD to a heat transfer of structural analysis.

The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the CFD User Profile

1. From the menu bar, select Preferences > User Profiles or click on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select Engineering Solutions > CFD.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Model File

1. Click the Open Model icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select the s_bend_tube.hm file.

3. Click Open.

4. Use the Model browser to turn off the display of the component cube.

Step 3: Load and Process Tecplot File

1. From the menu bar, select Tools > Mapping CFD Loads.
2. This opens a dialog explaining the mapping process and asking if you want to continue. Select
Yes.
3. Browse and select the file Sbend_Model_CFDpp_Tecplot_SURFTEC.DAT.

4. Select Open to open the file.

5. This opens the file and creates nodal results files for each result type present in the file.
6. Another dialog appears telling you that the file names can be reviewed in the log report
window. Click OK to close the window.

7. Review the log file. Notice that for each scalar data type available in the Tecplot file, a new file
was created. The file name is appended with the name of the scalar and “_for_LI”. When you
have finished reviewing the file, click Dismiss.
Step 4: Create a Load Collector for the Pressure Loads

1. Right-click in the Model browser and select Create > Load Collector. The Entity Editor opens.

2. For Name enter pressure.

Step 5: Map the Load Pressure to the New File

1. From the menu bar, click Tools>Linear interpolation>Pressure.

2. Select elems>by collector and then select the component Tube_Sbend. Click select to accept the

selection.

3. Click the switch next to magnitude and select linear interpolation.

4. There is now a file= field under linear interpolation. Click … next to the file= field to select a file.

5. Browse for the file Sbend_Model_CFDpp_Tecplot_SURFTEC_P_for_LI.DAT. Click Open. This file

contains the pressure results from the CFD analysis.

 6. For search radius, enter 0.05. The search radius is a search distance to find the loads which are

within that distance from a centroid or node on which a load is being interpolated. Altair HyperMesh uses

the nearest three loads located within that distance to create the load at the centroid or node by linear

interpolation. Linear interpolation uses a triangulation method, so if it finds fewer than three loads within

that distance no interpolation takes place. While reading the initial loads from a file, if linear interpolation

is not possible because the search radius is too small, the original loads are simply applied to the nearest

centroid or node.
7. Next to nodes on face, click nodes and then select three nodes that define an element (see image

below).

8. Select create.

9. Select return to exit the panel.

Step 6: Turn Off the Display of the Load Collector and Show Pressure Loads
As a Contour Plot

1. Within the Model browser, expand the Load Collector folder.

2. To turn off the display of the load collector pressure, click the mesh icon, , to the left of pressure.

The icon will be grayed out and the pressure loads will no longer be displayed.
3. Select Tools > Contour Loads. This opens a new tab called Contour Loads.

4. Click pressure to select the load collector to be contoured.

5. Click on Accept. This displays the Contour panel and automatically loads the appropriate information.
6. Click contour.
This simply displays the pressure load as a contour for an easier way to view the load. Now that the

pressure load has been applied, an additional analysis can be set up and run.
Crash

The following tutorials are available for the Crash - LS-DYNA user profile:

CRASH-1000: Defining LS-DYNA Model and Load Data, Controls and Output

CRASH-1100: Using Curves, Beams, Rigid Bodies, Joints and Loads in LS-DYNA

CRASH-1200: Model Importing, Airbags, Exporting Displayed, and Contacts using LS-DYNA

CRASH-1300: Rigid Wall, Model Data, Constraints, Cross Section, and Output Using LS-DYNA

The following tutorials are available for the Crash - Altair Radioss user profile:
CRASH-2000: Front Impact Bumper Model

CRASH-2100: Simplified Car Front Pole Impact

CRASH-2200: Pedestrian Head Impact Simulation

CRASH-2300: Creating a Seat Mechanism Using the Mechanism Browser

CRASH-1000: Defining LS-DYNA Model and Load Data, Controls, and Output

In this tutorial, you will learn to:

• View LS-DYNA keywords in the Engineering Solutions - Crash – LS-DYNA user profile as they
will appear in the exported LS-DYNA input file
• Understand part, material, and section creation and element organization
• Create sets
• Create velocities
• Understand the relation of LS-DYNA entity type to Altair HyperMesh element and load
configurations
• Create nodal single point constraints
• Create contacts with set segment ID
• Define output and termination
• Export models to LS-DYNA formatted input files
The model files used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this
directory to your working directory.

Exercise 1: Define Model Data for the Head and A-Pillar Impact Analysis

Element property and material assignment rules are based on the current user profile (solver interface).
Element Property and Material Assignment Rules for LS-DYNA Solver

• Components have no card images; typically "part" card images.

• Properties and materials are only assigned to components; properties and materials are not directly a
elements. Use the Entity Editor to assign properties and materials to components.
• Elements are assigned through the property and material assigned to the component in which they
are organized into.
• If a component is not assigned to a property or material, then all of the elements within that
component will not have a property or material assignment.

Property/material assignment schematic

The figure below shows how the keywords *PART, *ELEMENT, *MAT, and *SECTION relate to each other.
Relation of *PART, *ELEMENT, *MAT, and *SECTION to each other

*ELEMENT EID PID

*PART PID SID MID

*SECTION SID

*MAT MID
A *PART shares attributes such as section properties (*SECTION) and a material model (*MAT). A

group of elements (*ELEMENT) sharing common attributes generally share a common part ID (PID). The

figure below shows how the keywords *PART, *ELEMENT, *MAT and *SECTION relate to each other. A

unique PID assigns a material ID (MID) and a section ID (SID) to an element.

The table below shows how the *ELEMENT, *PART, *SECTION, and *MAT keywords are organized.

*ELEMENT EID PID Elements are organized into a component collector

*PART PID SID MID Component collector’s card image

*SECTION SID Property collector with a property card image. Assign a property to a

*PART by pointing to the property collector in the component

collector’s card image.

*MAT MID Material collector with a material card image. Assign the material to

the *PART by associating the material collector to the component

collector.

Create and modify component, property, and material collectors in the Collectors panel, Model or
Solver browser, and Entity Editor.

View LS-DYNA keywords in Engineering Solutions

An Engineering Solutions card image allows you to view the keywords and data lines for defined LS-DYNA

entities as interpreted by the loaded template. The keywords and data lines appear in the exported

LS-DYNA input file as you see them in the card images. Additionally, for some card images, you can

define and edit various parameters and data items for the corresponding LS-DYNA keyword.

View card images using the Card Editor, which can be accessed by doing one of the following:

• From the menu bar, click Model > Component > Card Edit.

• On the Collectors toolbar, click .

• In the Model browser or Solver browser, right-click on an entity and select Card Edit from the
context menu.

Create *MAT
In Engineering Solutions, a *MAT is a material collector with a card image. To relate it to a *PART, the

material collector is associated to a component collector.

Create a material collector by doing one of the following:

• In the Model browser or Solver browser, right-click and select Create > Material from the
context menu.
• From the menu bar, click Model > Material > Create.
 • On the Collectors toolbar, click .

Update a component’s material

Change the material assigned to a component in the Component Collectors panel, update subpanel,

or in the Entity Editor.

• Access the update subpanel by clicking on the Collectors toolbar.

• Access the Entity Editor by left-clicking on a component in the Model or Solver browser.

Material table

Use the Material Table to:

• View existing materials in an interactive tabular list
• Create materials
• Merge identical materials
• Search for duplicate materials
• Change the properties of existing materials
• Access this tool from the menu bar by clicking Model > Material Table, or by clicking Material
Table from the Utility menu.

Create *SECTION

In Engineering Solutions, *SECTION is a property collector with a card image.

Create a property collector by doing one of the following:

• In the Model browser or Solver browser, right-click and select Create > Property from the
context menu.
• From the menu bar, click Model > Property > Create.

• On the Collectors toolbar, click .

Exercise objective and tasks

The purpose for this exercise is to help you become familiar with defining LS-DYNA materials, sections

and parts using Engineering Solutions – Crash - LS-DYNA.

In this exercise you will set up model data for a LS-DYNA analysis of a hybrid III dummy head impacting

an A-pillar. The head and A-pillar model is depicted below.

Head and A-pillar model

This exercise contains the following tasks:

• Define the material *MAT_ELASTIC for the A-pillar part and head part.
• Define *SECTION_SHELL for the A-pillar.
• Define *SECTION_SOLID for the head.
• Define *PART for the A-pillar and the head.

Step 1: Load the Engineering Solutions Crash - LS-DYNA user profile

1. From the Start menu, select Engineering Solutions > Crash > (HyperMesh).

2. Select the LS-DYNA profile in Crash.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Retrieve the model file

1. To open a model file, click File > Open from the menu bar, or click on the Standard toolbar.
2. In the Open Model dialog, select the head_start.hm file. The model appears in the graphics area.

Step 3: Define the material *MAT_ELASTIC for the A-pillar and head
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *MAT > MAT(1-50) > 1 - *MAT_ELASTIC

from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new material in the Entity Editor.
2. For Name, enter ELASTIC.

3. For Rho (Density), enter 1.2E-6.

4. For E (Young's modulus), enter 210.

5. For Nu (Poisson's ratio), enter 0.26.

Step 4: Define property (*SECTION_SHELL) with a thickness of 3.5 mm for the

A-pillar
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SECTION > *SECTION_SHELL from the

context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new property in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter section3.5.

3. Expand NonUniformThickness, and enter 3.5 for T1.

Step 5: Define *SECTION_SOLID for the head
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SECTION > *SECTION_SOLID from the

context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new property in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter solid.

Step 6: Define *PART for the A-pillar

MAT_ELASTIC is the material collector named "ELASTIC". *SECTION_SHELL is the property collector

named "section3.5".

1. In the Model browser, Component folder, click pillar. The Entity Editor opens, and displays the
component's corresponding data.

2. Set Card image to Part.

3. For Material, click Unspecified >> Material.

4. In the Select Material dialog, select ELASTIC and then click OK. Engineering Solutions assigns

the material Elastic to the component pillar.

5. For Property, click Unspecified >> Property.

6. In the Select Property dialog, select section3.5 and then click OK. Engineering Solutions assigns
the property section3.5 to the component pillar.

Step 7: Define *PART for the head

*MAT_ELASTIC is the material collector named "ELASTIC". *SECTION_SOLID is the property collector

named "solid".

1. In the Model browser, Component folder, click head. The Entity Editor opens, and displays the

component's corresponding data.

2. Set Card Image to Part.

3. Assign the material ELASTIC to the component.

4. Assign the property solid to the component.
 Step 8 (Optional): Save your work
The exercise is complete. Save your work as an Altair HyperMesh file named head_2.hm.

Exercise 2: Define Boundary Conditions and Loads for the Head and A-Pillar
Impact Analysis

*INITIAL_VELOCITY_(Option)
LS-DYNA keywords used for defining initial velocity.

LS-DYNA keyword Velocity applied to … Setup in Altair HyperMesh

*INITIAL_VELOCITY set of nodes, *SET_NODE_LIST Entity set of nodes, load collector

with InitialVel card image

*INITIAL_VELOCITY_GENERATION one *PART or set of parts, Entity set of comps, load collector
*SET_PART_LIST
with InitialVel card image

*INITIAL_VELOCITY_NODE individual nodes Created from Velocity panel,

organized in load collector with no

card image

*SET

Graphically view a set’s contents in the Entity Sets panel using the review function.
Altair HyperMesh entity configurations and types

Altair HyperMesh elements and loads have two identifiers:

• Configuration - an Altair HyperMesh core feature.

• Type - defined by the loaded FE output template. A configuration can support multiple types.
Before creating elements or loads, select the desired type from either the Elem Types panel.
Only use the Load Types subpanel to directly create loads on nodes or elements. For all other cases,

define loads by creating a load collector with a card image. For example, *INITIAL_VELOCITY_NODE

(applied directly to nodes) is created from the Velocities panel, while *INITIAL_VELOCITY (applied to

nodes in a set) is a load collector with the InitialVel card image.

View a list of element and load configurations in the Elem Types panel and the Load Types panel,

respectively.

Elem Types panel

Load Types panel

Some element configurations are rigid and quad4. When you load a dyna.key template, the following

types of the rigid configuration are available: RgdBody, ConNode, and GenWeld

(*CONSTRAINED_NODAL_RIGID_BODY, *CONSTRAINED_NODE_SET, and

*CONSTRAINED_GENERALIZED_WELD_SPOT).

Similarly, some load configurations are force and pressure. Types of the pressure configuration are
ShellPres and SegmentPre (*LOAD_SHELL_ELEMENT and *LOAD_SEGMENT).

Most element and load configurations have their own panels. For example, rigids are created with the

Rigids panel and constraints are created with the Constraints panel.

*BOUNDARY_SPC_(Option)

LS-DYNA keywords used for defining nodal single point constraints.

LS-DYNA keyword Constraint applied to … Setup in Altair HyperMesh

*BOUNDARY_SPC_NODE individual nodes These are constraints created from the

Constraints panel and organized into

a load collector with no card image.

*BOUNDARY_SPC_SET a set of nodes This is an entity set of nodes referenced

*SET_NODE_LIST
in a load collector’s BoundSpcSet

card image.

*CONTACT and *SET_SEGMENT

A LS-DYNA contact is an Altair HyperMesh group. Select groups when you want to manipulate a

*CONTACT, such as delete, renumber, or display it off.

LS-DYNA contact master and slave types

LS-DYNA has multiple contact master and slave types from which to choose.

*SET_SEGMENT and Contactsurfs panel

Create a *SET_SEGMENT by right-clicking in the Solver browser and selecting Create >

*SET > *SET_SEGMENT from the context menu. Additionally, add and remove elements from an

existing *SET_SEGMENT and adjust the normal of segments without adjusting the normal of elements
with the Contactsurfs panel.

The graphical representation of a contactsurf is pyramids, one pyramid for each segment.

The orientation of a pyramid represents the normal orientation of the segment.

By default, the orientation of a pyramid is the same as the normal of the element underneath.

Exercise objective and tasks

The purpose for this exercise is to help you become familiar with defining LS-DYNA boundary conditions,
loads and contacts using Engineering Solutions.

In this exercise you will set up the boundary conditions and load data for a LS-DYNA analysis of a hybrid

III dummy head impacting an A-pillar. The head and A-pillar model is depicted below.
Head and A-pillar model

This exercise contains the following tasks:

• Define velocity on all nodes of the head with *INITIAL_VELOCITY

• Constrain the pillar’s end nodes in all six degrees of freedom with *BOUNDARY_SPC_NODE
• Define a contact between the head and A-pillar with
*CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE

Step 1: Make sure the Engineering Solutions Crash LS-DYNA user profile is

still loaded

1. To select a user profile, click Preferences > User Profiles from the menu bar, or click on the
Standard toolbar.

2. Select Engineering Solutions >Crash> LS-DYNA.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Retrieve the model file head_2.hm

1. To open a model file, click File > Open from the menu bar, or click on the Standard toolbar.
2. In the Open Model dialog, open the head_2.hm file. The model appears in the graphics area.

3. Observe the model using various visual options available in Engineering Solutions (rotation, zooming,
and so on).

Step 3: Create a node set, *SET_NODE_LIST, containing all the nodes in the

head component
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SET > *SET_NODE > *SET_NODE_LIST
from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new set in the Entity Editor.
2. For Name, enter Vel_Nodes.

3. For Entity IDs, click 0 Nodes >> Nodes.

4. In the panel area, click Nodes >> by collector.

5. Select the component, head.

6. Click select.
7. Click proceed.

Step 4: Define the velocity

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *INITIAL >*INITIAL_VELOCITY from the

context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new load collector in the Entity Editor.
2. For Name, enter init_vel.

3. Click NSID (Node Set ID), and then click Set.

4. In the Select Set dialog, select Vel_Nodes and then click OK.

5. For VX (x-component of mass center of velocity), enter 5.

Step 5: Create a load collector for the constraints to be created
1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Load Collector from the context menu.

Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new load collector in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter SPC.

3. Optional: Click the Color icon, and select a color to display the load collector.

4. Set Card Image to <None>.

Step 6: Create constraints on the pillar’s end nodes

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *BOUNDARY > *BOUNDARY_SPC_NODE

from the context menu. The Constraints panel opens.

2. In the panel area, set the entity selector to nodes.

3. Click nodes >> by sets.

4. Select the entity set, nodes for SPC.

5. Click select. Engineering Solutions selects the nodes at both ends of the pillar.

6. Verify that all six dof (degree of freedom) checkboxes are selected.

7. Verify that the load type is set to BoundSPC.

8. Click create.
9. Click return to close the panel.

Step 7: Define a *SET_SEGMENT for the slave entities, the A-pillar elements
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SET > *SET_SEGMENT > *SET_SEGMENT

from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new contactsurf in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter pillar_slave.

3. Optional: Click the Color icon, and select a color to display the contactsurf.
4. For Elements, click 0 Elements >> Elements.

5. In the panel area, set the second switch to elems.

6. Click elems >> by collector.

7. Select the component, pillar.

8. Click select.

9. Click add.

10. Review the contactsurf to make sure that its pyramids are pointing out of the pillar.

11. Click return to close the panel.

Step 8: Define a *SET_SEGMENT for the master entities, the head elements
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SET > *SET_SEGMENT >

*SET_SEGMENT from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new contactsurf in

the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter head_master.

3. Optional: Click the Color icon, and select a color to display the contactsurf.
4. For Elements, click 0 Elements >> Elements.
5. In the panel area, set the first switch to add solid faces.
6. Set the second switch to elems.

7. Click elems >> by collector.

8. Select the component, head.

9. Click select.

10. Using the nodes selector, select three nodes that belong to the same face of a solid element.

11. In the face angle field, enter 30.

12. Select the reverse normals checkbox.

13. Click add.

14. Review the contactsurf to make sure that its pyramids are pointing out of the head.

15. Click return to close the panel.

Step 9: Create an Altair HyperMesh group with the SurfaceToSurface card

image
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *CONTACT >

*CONTACT_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE > *CONTACT_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE from the context menu.

Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new group in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter contact.

Step 10: Add the slave and master contactsurfs to the Altair HyperMesh group
In this step, the Entity Editor should still be open for the group, contact.

1. In the Entity Editor, click MSID and set the entity selector to contactsurfs.

2. Click contactsurfs.

3. In the Select Contactsurfs dialog, select head_master and then click OK.

4. Click SSID, and set the entity selector to Contactsurfs.

5. Click Contactsurfs.
6. In the Select Contactsurfs dialog, select pillar_slave and then click OK.

Step 11: Edit the group’s card image to define the AUTOMATIC option
In this step, the Entity Editor should still be open for the group, contact.
1. In the Entity Editor, for the first Options parameter, select Automatic.
Step 12: Review the group’s master and slave surfaces
1. To open the Interfaces panel, click on the Setup page radio button and then click interfaces.

2. Go to the add subpanel.

3. Click name=, and select contact.

4. Click review. Engineering Solutions temporarily displays the master and slave entities in blue and
red, respectively.
 5. Click return to close the panel.

Step 13 (Optional): Save your work

The exercise is complete. Save your work as an Altair HyperMesh file named head_3.hm.

Exercise 3: Define Termination and Output for the Head and A-Pillar Impact
Analysis

*CONTROL and *DATABASE

*CONTROL cards are optional, but can be used to change defaults and activate solution options,
such as mass scaling, adaptive meshing, and an implicit solution. It is advisable to define
*CONTROL_TERMINATION in a model to specify a job’s end time.

*DATABASE cards are optional, but are necessary to obtain output files containing results.

Exercise objective and tasks

The purpose for this exercise is to help you become familiar with defining LS-DYNA control data and
output requests using Engineering Solutions.
In this exercise you will define the termination and output for a LS-DYNA analysis of a hybrid III
dummy head impacting an A-pillar. The head and A-pillar model is shown in the image below.
Head and A-pillar model

This exercise contains the following tasks:

• Specify the time at which LS-DYNA is to stop the analysis with *CONTROL_TERMINATION
• Specify ASCII output with *DATABASE_(Option) cards
• Specify the output of d3plot files with *DATABASE_BINARY_D3PLOT
• Export the model to an LS-DYNA 970 formatted input file

Step 1: Make sure the Engineering Solutions Crash - LS-DYNA user profile
is still loaded
1. To select a user profile, click Preferences > User Profiles from the menu bar, or click on the
Standard toolbar.

2. Select Engineering Solutions >Crash> LS-DYNA.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Retrieve the model file head_3.hm

1. To open a model file, click File > Open from the menu bar, or click on the Standard
toolbar.

2. In the Open Model dialog, open the head_3.hm file. The model appears in the graphics area.

Step 3: Specify the time at which you want LS-DYNA to stop the analysis
with *CONTROL_TERMINATION
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > CONTROL >
CONTROL_TERMINATION from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a
new control in the Entity Editor.

2. For ENDTIM (termination time), enter 2.5.

Step 4: Specify the output of d3plot files with
*DATABASE_BINARY_D3PLOT
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > DATABASE >
DATABASE_BINARY_D3PLOT from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and
opens a new database in the Entity Editor.

2. For DT (time interval between outputs), enter 0.1.

Step 5: Specify ASCII output with *DATABASE_(Option) cards

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > DATABASE > DATABASE_OPTION
from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new database in the Entity
Editor.

2. Select the GLSTAT checkbox.

3. For DT, enter 0.1.

Note: This specifies the output of global data at every 0.1 ms.

4. Select the MATSUM checkbox.

5. For DT, enter 0.1.

Note: This specifies the output of material energies every 0.1 ms.

6. Select the SPCFORC checkbox.

7. For DT, enter 0.1.

Note: This specifies the output of SPC reaction forces every 0.1 ms.

Step 6: Export the model as an LS-DYNA keyword file

1. From the menu bar, click File > Export > Solver Deck.

2. In the Export tab, select LsDyna from the File type list.

3. From the Template list, select appropriate template.

4. In the File field, navigate to your working directory and save the file as head_complete.key.

5. Click Export.

Step 7 (Optional): Submit the LS-DYNA input file to LS-DYNA 970

1. From your desktop’s Start menu, open the LS-DYNA Manager program.

2. From the solvers menu, select Start LS-DYNA analysis.

3. Load the file head_complete.key.

4. Click OK to start the analysis.

Step 8 (Optional): Post-Process the LS-DYNA results using Altair

HyperView
The exercise is complete. Save your work to an Altair HyperMesh file.
CRASH-1100: Using Curves, Beams, Rigid Bodies, Joints, and Loads in LS-DYNA

In this tutorial, you will learn how to:

• Create XY curves to define non-linear materials

• Define beam elements with HyperBeam
• Create constrained nodal rigid bodies
• Create joints
• Define *DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID
• Define *LOAD_BODY
• Define *BOUNDARY_PRESCRIBED_MOTION_NODE
• Use the Component Table tool to review the model’s data
The model files used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this
directory to your working directory.

Exercise 1: Define Model Data for the Seat Impact Analysis

This exercise will help you become familiar with defining LS-DYNA model data using Engineering
Solutions.
In this exercise you will define and review model data for a LS-DYNA analysis of a vehicle seat
impacting a rigid block. The seat and block model is shown in the image below.

Seat and block model

Step 1: Load the Engineering Solutions Crash LS-DYNA user profile

1. From the Start menu, select Engineering Solutions > Crash > (HyperMesh).

2. Select the LS-DYNA profile in Crash.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Retrieve the model file

1. To open a model file, click File > Open from the menu bar, or click on the Standard
toolbar.

2. In the Open Model dialog, select the seat_start.hm file. The model appears in the graphics
area.
3. Observe the model using various visual options available in Engineering Solutions (rotation,
zooming, and so on).

Step 3: Create an xy plot

1. To open the Plots panel, click Model > Function > Create > Plot.

2. For plot=, enter seat_mat.

3. Set the plot type to standard.

4. Leave the like = field empty. When an existing plot is selected, the new plot adopts its
attributes.

5. Click create plot.

6. Click return.

Step 4: Input data from a file to create two stress-strain curves

1. Click Model > Function > Create > Read Curve.

2. For plot =, leave it set to seat_mat.

3. Click load and locate the file named seat_mat_data.txt.

4. Click Open.

5. Click create. Two curves are created.

6. Click return.

Step 5: Create a Table

1. From the Model menu, click Table > Create.
2. Enter Steel_flow_stress_data as a name for the table.

3. In the card image, in the [ArrayCount] field, specify 2. This is the number of strain rate values
to be specified.

4. For the strain rate VALUE(1) field, specify 0.001.

5. For the strain rate VALUE(2) field, specify 0.004.

6. Click CurveId(1) and select curve1.

7. Click CurveId(2) and select curve2.

8. Click return to exit the panel.

Step 6: Create the non-linear material

(*MAT_PIECEWISE_LINEAR_PLASTICITY)
1. To open the Solver browser, click View > Solver Browser from the menu bar.

2. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *MAT > MAT (1-50) > 24-
*MAT_PIECEWISE_LINEAR_PLASTICITY from the context menu. Engineering Solutions
creates and opens a new material in the Entity Editor.

3. For Name, enter steel.

4. For Rho (Mass density), enter 7.8 E-6.

5. For E (Young modulus), enter 200.

6. For NU (Poisson ratio), enter 0.3.

7. For SIGY (Yield stress), enter 0.25.

8. Click LCSS, and then click curve.

9. In the Select Curve dialog, select curve3 and then click OK.
Step 7: Update the base_frame and back_frame components with the new
non-linear material
1. From the menu bar, click Model > Component Table.

2. In the Components and Properties dialog, click Table > Editable from the menu bar.

3. Select the component, base_frame.

4. Set Assign Values to Material name.

5. Set HM-Mats to steel.

6. Click Set. Engineering Solutions assigns the material steel to the component base_frame.

7. In the Confirm dialog, click Yes.

8. Assign the material steel to the component, back_frame.

9. From the menu bar in the dialog, click Table > Quit.

Steps 8-10: Create a beam element, *ELEMENT_BEAM,

to complete the seat’s back_frame connection to the
side_frame on the left side

Step 8: Restore a pre-defined view

1. In the Model browser, View folder, right-click on Beam_view and select Show from the
context menu.

Step 9: Set the current component to beams

1. In the Model browser, Component folder, right-click on beams and select Make Current
from the context menu. Engineering Solutions sets the beam component as the current
collector.

Step 10: Create the beam

1. To open the Bars panel, click Mesh > Create > 1D Elements > Bars from the menu bar.

2. Under orientation, click the switch and select node.

Note: You will select a direction node later to define the beam’s section orientation.

3. Using the node A selector, select the center node of the left nodal rigid body.

4. Using the node B selector, select the center node of the right nodal rigid body.

5. Using the direction node selector, select any non-center node on one of the nodal rigid bodies.
Engineering Solutions creates the beam.
6. Click return.

Step 11: Display node IDs for ease of following the next steps
1. To open the Numbers panel, click on the Display toolbar.
2. Set the entity selector to nodes.

3. Click nodes >> by id.

4. In the id= field, enter 425-427, 431.

5. Press Enter.

6. Select the display checkbox.

7. Click on. Engineering Solutions displays the IDs.

8. Click return.

Step 12: Set the current component to welding

1. In the Model browser, Component folder, right-click on welding and select Make Current
 from the context menu. Engineering Solutions sets the welding component as the current
collector.

Step 13: Create the nodal rigid body

(*CONSTRAINED_NODAL_RIGID_BODY)
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *CONSTRAINED >
*CONSTRAINED_NODAL_RIGID_BODY > *CONSTRAINED_NODAL_RIGID_BODY from
the context menu.

2. In the Rigids panel, set the nodes 2-n selector to multiple nodes.

3. Using the node1 selector, select the beam’s free end.

4. Click nodes 2-n: nodes >> by id.

5. In the id= field, enter 425, 426, 427, 431.

6. Press ENTER.

7. Leave the attach nodes as set checkbox selected.

8. Click create. Engineering Solutions creates the nodal rigid body.

9. Click return. Engineering Solutions does not create *CONSTRAINED_JOINT_STIFFNESS; it is

not needed for this joint to work.
Step 14: Display node IDs for ease of following the next steps

1. On the Visualization toolbar, click to display the model's elements as wireframe elements
skin only.

2. Open the Numbers panel by clicking on the Display toolbar.

3. Set the entity selector nodes.

4. Click nodes >> by id.

5. In the id= field, enter 1635, 1636.

6. Press ENTER.

7. Select the display checkbox.

8. Click on. Engineering Solutions displays the IDs.

9. Click return.

Step 15: Activate coincident picking

1. Open the Graphics panel by clicking Preferences > Graphics from the menu bar.

2. Select the coincident picking checkbox.

3. Click return.

Step 16: Set the current component to joint

1. In the Model browser, Component folder, right-click on joint and select Make Current from
the context menu. Engineering Solutions sets the joint component as the current collector.

Step 17: Create a revolute joint between two nodal rigid bodies
(*CONSTRAINED_JOINT_REVOLUTE)
The rigid bodies must share a common edge along which to define the joint. This edge, however,
must not have the nodes merged together. The two rigid bodies will rotate relative to each other
along the axis defined by the common edge.
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *CONSTRAINED >
*CONSTRAINED_JOINT_REVOLUTE > *CONSTRAINED_JOINT_REVOLUTE from the
context menu.

2. In the Joints panel, set the joint type to revolute.

3. Using the node 1 selector, click node 1635. The coincident picking mechanism displays two
nodes: 1635 and 1633.

4. From the coincident picking mechanism, click node 1635. Engineering Solutions selects node
1635 for node 1 in rigid body A.

5. Using the node 2 selector, click node 1635. The coincident picking mechanism displays two
nodes: 1635 and 1633.

6. From the coincident picking mechanism, click node 1633. Engineering Solutions selects node
1633 for node 2 in rigid body B.
7. Using the node 3 selector, click node 1636. The coincident picking mechanism displays two
nodes: 1636 and 1634.

8. From the coincident picking mechanism, click node 1636. Engineering Solutions selects node
1636 for node 3 in rigid body A.

9. Using the node 4 selector, select node 1634 for node 4 in rigid body B.
10. Click create. Engineering Solutions creates the joint.

11. Click return.

Steps 18-20: Define *DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID to set

up the moving seat as rigid until the time of impact with
the block, to reduce computation time

Step 18: Create an entity set that contains the components base_frame,
back_frame, and cover
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SET > *SET_PART >
*SET_PART_LIST from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new set
in the Entity Editor.
2. For Name, enter set_part_seat.

3. For Entity IDs, click 0 Components >> Components.

4. In the Select Components dialog, select base_frame, back_frame, and cover and then
click OK.

Step 19: Define *DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID to switch the deformable seat

to rigid at the beginning of the analysis
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID >
*DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID from the context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens
a new load collector in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter dtor.

3. For ArrayCount, select 1.

4. For PSID, click Unspecified >> Set.

5. In the Select Set dialog, select set_part_seat and then click OK.

6. For MRB, click Unspecified >> Component.

7. In the Select Component dialog, select rigid block and then click OK.

8. Click Close.

Step 20: Create *DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID_AUTOMATIC to switch the rigid

seat to deformable when contact between the seat and block is detected
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID >
*DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID_AUTOMATIC from the context menu. Engineering Solutions
creates and opens a new load collector in the Entity Editor.
2. For Name, enter dtor_automatic.

3. For SWSET (set number of this automatic switch set), enter 1.

4. For CODE (activation switch code), select 0.

Note: The switch will take place at [TIME1].

5. For TIME1, enter 175.

Note: The switch will not take place before this time.

6. Select the R2D_Flag checkbox.

Note: On export, the number of rigid parts to be switched to deformable is written to the
R2D field (card 2, field 6). This number is based on the number of parts in the entity
set you select next.

7. Click PSIDR2D, and then Set.

Note: PSIDR2D is the part ID of the part which is switched to a rigid material.

8. In the Select Set dialog, select set_part_seat and then click OK.

Steps 21-24: Review the model’s component data using

the Model Browser, Solver Browser or Component Table
tool

Using the Model browser approach:

Step 21: Display only parts with a particular material (Ex: steel)

1. In the Model browser, click .

2. In the ELASTIC-PLASTIC folder, MATL24 folder, right-click on steel and select Isolate from
the context menu. Engineering Solutions only displays the components that have the selected
material assigned.

3. To review several materials, click , select a material, and scroll through the material using
the arrow keys in the Model browser. The corresponding parts are automatically isolated in the
view.

4. Follow the above steps to select components using the By Properties option.

Step 22: Display all components

1. In the Model browser, click .

Step 23: Rename a part

1. In the Model browser, click .

2. Right-click on the part you would like to rename, and then select rename from the context
menu.

3. In the editable field, enter a new name for the entity. The part's new name changes in the
Solver and Model browsers.

Step 24: Renumber a part ID

1. In the Model browser, click on a part's ID field. The ID field becomes editable.

2. Enter a number that does not conflict with the existing part IDs, and then press ENTER.

Using the Solver browser approach:

Step 21: Display only parts with a particular material (Ex: steel)
1. In the Model browser, Materials folder, right-click on Steel and select Isolate from the
context menu.

2. In the Solver browser, *SECTION folder, select components based on properties.

Step 22: Display all components
1. In the Solver browser, click the *MAT folder.

Step 23: Rename a part

1. In the Solver browser, select the part you would like to rename. The Entity Editor opens, and
displays the part's corresponding data.

2. For Name, and enter a new name for the part. The part's new name changes in the Solver and
Model browsers.

Step 24: Renumber a part ID

1. In the Solver browser, select the part you would like to change the ID of. The Entity Editor
opens, and displays the part's corresponding data.

2. For ID, enter a new ID for the part. The part's new ID changes in the Solver and Model
browser.

Using the Component Table approach:

Step 21: Display only parts with a particular material (Ex: steel)
1. From the menu bar, click Model > Component Table.

2. In the Components and Properties dialog, click Display > By Material from the menu bar.

3. In the panel area, click mats.

4. Select the material, steel.

5. Click Select.
6. Click proceed. The Component Table only displays the components with the material steel
assigned. All other components are turned off.

7. To select components using the By Properties and By thickness options, repeat the above
steps.

Step 22: Display all components

1. From the menu bar, click Display > All. The table displays all of the components in the model.

Step 23: Rename a part

1. From the menu bar, click Table > Editable. The table becomes editable. You can edit any of
the columns that have a white background. For example, Part name, Part id, Thickness, and
so on.

2. Click any Part name field. The field becomes editable.

3. Enter a new name for the part.

4. In the Confirm dialog, click Yes. The part's new name changes in the Solver and Model
browsers.
 Step 24: Renumber a part ID
1. From the menu bar, click Table > Editable. The table becomes editable.

2. Click any Part Id field. The field becomes editable.

3. Enter a new ID that does not conflict with any existing part IDs.
4. In the Confirm dialog, click Yes. The part's new ID changes in the Solver and Model
browsers.

Step 25: Review the model’s data using the Solver Browser
The created solver entities are listed in the corresponding folder in Solver browser. You can use the
following options on each entity to help navigate through the model: Show, Hide, Isolate, and
Review.
1. In the Solver browser, *DEFORMABLE_TO_RIGID folder, right-click on dtor and select
Isolate Only from the context menu. Engineering Solutions only displays the entities that are
referred in this keyword.

2. To highlight the entities that are referred in this keyword, right-click on dtor and select Review
from the context sensitive menu.
3. Right-click on the folder *BOUNDARY and then select Show from the context menu.
Engineering Solutions displays the entities on which the loads in the folder are defined, as well
as the load handles.

Exercise 2: Define Boundary Conditions and Loads for the Seat Impact
Analysis

This exercise will help you continue to become familiar with defining LS-DYNA boundary conditions
and loads using Engineering Solutions.

In this exercise, you will define boundary conditions and load data for an LS-DYNA analysis of a
vehicle seat impacting a rigid block. The seat and block model is shown in the image below.

Seat and block model

This exercise contains the following tasks:

 • Define gravity acting in the negative z-direction with *LOAD_BODY_Z
• Define the seat’s acceleration with *BOUNDARY_PRESCRIBED_MOTION_NODE
• Export the model to an LS-DYNA formatted input file and submit it to LS-DYNA

Step 1: Make sure the Engineering Solutions Crash LS-DYNA user profile is
still loaded
1. Click Preferences > User Profiles, or click the Load User Profile icon .

2. Select Engineering Solutions > Crash > LS-DYNA.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Retrieve the model file

1. To open a model file, click File > Open from the menu bar, or click on the Standard
toolbar.

2. In the Open Model dialog, open the seat_2.hm file. The model appears in the graphics area.

3. Take a few moments to observe the model using various visual options available (rotation,
zooming, and so on).

Step 3: Define gravity acting in the negative z-direction with

*LOAD_BODY_Z
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *LOAD > *LOAD_BODY_Z from the
context menu. Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new load collector in the Entity
Editor.

2. For Name, enter gravity.

3. Click LCID, and then click curve.

4. In the Select Curve dialog, select gravity curve and then click OK.

5. For SF (scale factor for acceleration in z-direction), enter 0.001.

Steps 4-6: Define the seat’s acceleration with

*BOUNDARY_PRESCRIBED_MOTION_NODE

Step 4: Create a load collector for the acceleration loads to be created

1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Load Collector from the context menu.
Engineering Solutions creates and opens a new load collector in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter accel.

3. Set Card Image to <None>.

4. Optional: Click the Color icon, and select a color for the load collector.

Step 5: Create acceleration loads on nodes

1. To open the Accelerations panel, click BCs > Imposed Acceleration > Create from the
menu bar.

2. Click load types =, and select PrcrbAcc_S.

3. Click sets.

4. Select the set, accel_nodes.

5. Click select.

6. Click the magnitude= switch, and select curve, vectors.

7. In the magnitude= field, enter 0.001.

Note: This is the scale factor for the pre-defined curve to be specified in the next step for the
acceleration loads. It will define the seat’s acceleration as a function of time.

8. Set the orientation selector to x-axis.

Note: This is the x-translational degree of freedom.

9. Double-click curve.

10. Select the curve, acceleration curve.

11. In the magnitude% = field, enter 1.0E+7.

Note: This is the scale factor for the graphical representation of the acceleration loads. It
does not affect the actual acceleration value.

12. Click create. Engineering Solutions creates the acceleration loads.

13. Click return.

Step 6: Export the model to an LS-DYNA 971 formatted input file

1. Click File > Export > Solver Deck. The Export tab opens.

2. Select LS-DYNA from the File type list.

3. In the File field, navigate to your working directory and save the file as seat_complete.key.

4. Click Export.

Step 7 (Optional): Submit the LS-DYNA input file to LS-DYNA 971

1. From the Start menu on your desktop, open the LS-DYNA Manager program.

2. From the solvers menu, select Start LS-DYNA analysis.

3. In the File field, navigate to your working directory and save the files as seat_complete.key.

4. Click OK to start the analysis.

Step 8 (Optional): View the results in Altair HyperView

The exercise is complete. Save your work as an Altair HyperMesh file.
CRASH-1200: Model Importing, Airbags, Exporting Displayed, and Contacts Using LS-
DYNA

In this tutorial, you will learn how to:

• Define *AIRBAG_WANG_NEFSKE for the airbag mesh geometry

• Define an initial velocity of 3 mm/ms in the negative x-direction for the head with
*INITIAL_VELOCITY_GENERATION
• Define a contact between the airbag and head with
*CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE
• Define *CONTACT_AIRBAG_SINGLE_SURFACE for the airbag
• Define a contact between the plate and the airbag with *CONTACT_NODES_TO_SURFACE
The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Import a LS-DYNA Model

Warning and error messages

When importing a LS-DYNA model, Engineering Solutions warning and error messages will be
written to a file named dynakey.msg or dynaseq.msg, depending on the FE input translator being
used. This file is created in the same folder from which Engineering Solutions was started.

Unsupported cards

On import, the LS-DYNA cards not supported by Engineering Solutions are written to the
unsupp_cards panel. Access this panel by clicking Setup > Control Cards. Unsupported cards will
be exported with the remaining model.

Care should be taken if an unsupported card points to an entity in Engineering Solutions. An

example of this is when an unsupported material references a *PART. Engineering Solutions stores
unsupported cards as text and does not consider pointers.

LSTC dummy files

You can read LSTC Hybrid III dummy files into Engineering Solutions by first converting the tree file
to FTSS/ARUP tree file format.

Include files
Engineering Solutions supports *INCLUDE. When Include files are imported into Engineering
Solutions, the IDs of non-existing entities are maintained and will not be used for new entities.

Use the Include files import option to specify whether to merge, preserve, or skip Include files on
import. Access this option by clicking File > Import > Solver Deck from the menu bar.

Support of Include files:

• The LSDYNA keywords *INCLUDE, *INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART,

*INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART_SET, *INCLUDE_TRANSFORM, and
*INCLUDE_COMPENSATION_OPTION are mapped to Include files.
 • Switch to different types of Include files using the context menu Include File option in the
Model browser, with the exception of *INCLUDE_TRANSFORM, *INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART,
and *INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART_SET.
• Manage INCLUDE_TRANSFORM using the Transformation Manager.
• During import, if the same Include file is referenced more than once using the
*INCLUDE_TRANSFORM, then it will be imported, but appended with .#, where # = 1…n is
shown in the Model browser. These will not be exported unless you clear the Instance
checkbox.
• During import, *INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART and *INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART_SET are
imported as "read only" by default to preserve the associativity.
• During import, an Include file can be read when *INCLUDE comes after
*INCLUDE_TRANSFORM.
• When importing Include files, use Solver options in the Import browser to choose the type
of Include file to import. This option enables you to set the Include file type to one of the
following: INCLUDE, INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART, INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART_SET, or
INCLUDE_COMPENSATION_options. This is the only option which enanables you to attach
any file of type INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART or INCLUDE_STAMPED_PART_SET.

Export Displayed

From the Export - Solver Deck tab, select the Export > Displayed option to export only
displayed nodes and elements. Only model data associated to the displayed nodes and elements are
exported. This model data includes materials and their associated curves, properties, portions of
contacts, and output requests.

Create and Review Contacts

The table below describes how all slave and master set types are created and specified in contacts.

* For slave surface only

Slave and master set LS-DYNA card Panel used to create card Equivalent
type
type in
Interfaces

panel, add

subpanel

EQ. 0: set segment id *SET_SEGMENT set_segment (contactsurfs) or csurfs

…

Interfaces, add subpanel entity

EQ. 1: shell element set id *SET_SHELL_Option Entity Sets or… sets

Interfaces, add subpanel entity

EQ. 2: part set id *SET_PART_LIST Entity Sets or… sets

Interfaces, add subpanel comps

 EQ. 3: part id *PART Collectors comps

* EQ. 4: node set id *SET_NODE_Option Entity Sets or… sets

Interfaces, add subpanel entity

* EQ. 5: include all Interfaces, add subpanel all

* EQ. 6: part set id for *SET_PART_LIST Interfaces, add subpanel and sets
exempted parts then card image sub-panel

Add subpanel

While the Interfaces panel, add subpanel has several master and slave entity types to choose from in
order to specify the LS-DYNA master or slave set for a *CONTACT, only the valid master and slave types

are selectable for the particular contact you are creating.

When the master or slave type is set to comps and only one component is selected, the LS-DYNA type is

3, part ID, and *PART is created. When multiple components are selected, the LS-DYNA type is 2, part

set ID, and *SET_PART_LIST is created.

When the master or slave type is set to sets, only those sets valid for the particular contact you are

creating are selectable. For example, for *CONTACT_NODES_TO_SURFACE, only a list of node sets

is available for slave; you will not see a list of other set types, like element or part sets.

Review contacts

Review contacts by clicking review in the Interfaces panel, add subpanel.

Exercise: Define Airbag, Velocity, and Contacts for the Airbag Analysis

This exercise will help you learn how to define LS-DYNA airbags, loads, and contacts.

In this exercise, you will define an airbag, velocity, and contacts for a LS-DYNA analysis of a head

impacting an inflating airbag.

Head and airbag model

Step 1: Load the Engineering Solutions Crash LS-DYNA user profile
1. From the Start menu, select Engineering Solutions > Crash > (HyperMesh).

2. Select LS-DYNA.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Import the LS-DYNA model

1. From the menu bar, select File > Import > Solver Deck.

2. In the File field, browse to the file airbag_start.key.

3. Click Import.
4. Click Close.

Steps 3-5: Define *AIRBAG_WANG_NEFSKE for the airbag

mesh geometry

Step 3: Create a set of parts, *SET_PART_LIST, containing the AirbagFront and

AirbagRear components
1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Set from the context menu. A new set opens in t
Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter airbag_set.

3. Set Card Image to Part.

4. For Entity IDs, click 0 Components >> Components.

5. In the Select Components dialog, select AirbagFront and AirbagRear, and then click OK.

Step 4: Define the airbag (*AIRBAG_WANG_NEFSKE)

1. Open the Solver browser by clicking View > Solver Browser from the menu bar.
2. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *AIRBAG > *AIRBAG_WANG_NEFSKE

from the context menu. A new control volume opens in the Entity Editor.

3. For Name, enter airbag.

4. Click SID. The entity selector becomes active.

5. Set the entity selector to Sets.

6. Click Set.

7. In the Select Set dialog, select airbag_set and then click OK.

Note: The parts in this set define the airbag's geometry.

8. For CV (Heat capacity at constant volume), enter 1023.0.

9. For CP (Heat capacity at constant pressure), enter 1320.0.

10. For T (Temperature of input gas), enter 780.0.

11. Click LCMT (Load curve specifying input mass flow rate) >> Curve.

12. In the Select Curve dialog, select airbag LCMT curve and then click OK.

13. For C23 (Vent orifice coefficient), enter 1.0.

14. Click LCA23 (Load curve defining vent orifice area as a function of pressure) >> Curve.

15. In the Select Curve dialog, select airbag LCA23 curve and then click OK.

16. For CP23 (Orifice coefficient for leakage), enter 1.0.

17. For PE (Ambient pressure), enter 1.0E-4.

18. For RO (Ambient density), enter 1.0E-9.

19. For GC (Gravitational conversion constant), enter 1.0.

Step 5: Define an initial velocity of 3 mm/ms in the negative x-direction for the

head with *INITIAL_VELOCITY_GENERATION

1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Load Collector from the context menu. A

new load collector opens in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter velocity.

3. Set Card Image to InitialVel.

4. Under Options, right-click on NSID and select Create from the context menu. The Create Sets

dialog opens.
5. For Entity IDs, click 0 Nodes >> Nodes.

6. In the panel area, click nodes >> by Collector.

7. Select the component, Head.

8. Click select.
9. Click proceed.

10. In the Create Sets dialog, click Close.

11. In the Solver browser, *INITIAL > *INITIAL_VELOCITY folder, right-click on velocity and select
Review from the context menu. Engineering Solutions highlights the load collector and grays out

all of the other entities.

12. Return all of the entities to their original display color by righting-click on velocity and selecting

Reset Review from the context menu.

Steps 6-12: Define a contact between the airbag and head

with *CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE

Step 6: Create an Altair HyperMesh group with the card image SurfaceToSurface
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *CONTACT >
*CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE >
*CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE from the context menu. A new group opens in

the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter Airbag_Head.

Step 7: Specify the head to be the master surface with surface type 3, part ID
In this step, the Entity Editor should still be open for the Airbag_Head group.

1. Click MSID.

2. Set the entity selector to Components.

3. Click Components.

4. In the Select Components dialog, select Head and then click OK.

Step 8: Specify all of the airbag to be the slave surface with surface type 2, part s
ID
In this step, the Entity Editor should still be open for the Airbag_Head group.
1. Click SSID.

2. Set the entity selector to Set.

3. Click Set.

4. In the Select Set dialog, select airbag_set and then click OK.

Note: This set contains the components, AirbagFront and AirbagRear.

Step 9: View the master and slave entities

In this step, the Airbag_Head group should still be selected in the Solver browser.

1. In the Solver browser, right-click on Airbag_Head and select Review from the context menu.
Engineering Solutions temporarily displays the master and slave entities blue and red, respectively. All

of the other entities are temporarily displayed gray.

2. Return all of the entities to their original display color by right-clicking on Airbag_Head and

selecting Reset Review from the context menu.

Step 10: Define *CONTACT_AIRBAG_SINGLE_SURFACE for the airbag

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *CONTACT >
*CONTACT_AIRBAG_SINGLE_SURFACE from the context menu. A new group opens in the Entity
Editor.

2. For Name, enter airbag.

Step 11: Define all of the airbag to be the slave surface with slave set type 2,

part set ID
In this step, the Entity Editor should still be open for the airbag group.

1. Click SSID.
2. Set the entity selector to Set.

3. Click Set.

4. In the Select Set dialog, select airbag_set and then click OK.
Step 12: View the slave entities
In this step, the airbag group should still be selected in the Solver browser.
1. In the Solver browser, right-click on airbag and select Review from the context menu. Engineering
Solutions temporarily displays the master and slave entities blue and red, respectively. All of the other
entities are temporarily displayed gray.

2. Return all of the entities to their original display color by right-clicking on airbag and selecting Reset
Review from the context menu.

Steps 13- 18: Define a Contact Between the Plate and the
Airbag with *CONTACT_NODES_TO_SURFACE

Step 13: Due to the dynamics of the contact, define the AirbagRear component

to be the master surface with master type 0, set segment ID

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SET > *SET_SEGMENT >
*SET_SEGMENT from the context menu. A new contactsurf opens in the Entity Editor.
2. For Name, enter AirbagRear_master.

3. Optional: Click the Color icon and select a color for the contactsurf.

4. For Elements, click 0 Elements >> Elements.

5. In the panel area, set the second switch to elems.

6. Click elems >> by collector.

7. Select the component, AirbagRear.

8. Click select.

9. Click add.
Step 14: Reverse the contactsurf’s pyramids so they point out of the airbag
1. In the panel area, set the first switch to adjust normals.

2. Select the all elements checkbox.

3. Click reverse.

4. Click return.
Step 15: Create *CONTACT_NODES_TO_SURFACE card
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *CONTACT >

*CONTACT_NODES_TO_SURFACE > *CONTACT_NODES_TO_SURFACE from the context menu.

A new group opens in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter Airbag_Plate.

Step 16: Specify the AirbagRear_master contactsurf for the contact’s master

surface
In this step, the Entity Editor should still be open for the Airbag_Plate group.

1. Click MSID.
2. Set the entity selector to Contactsurfs.

3. Click Contactsurfs.

4. In the Select Contactsurfs dialog, select AirbagRear_master and then click OK.

Step 17: Define the plate to be the contact’s slave surface with slave type 4,

node set ID
1. For SSID, click 0 Nodes >> Nodes.

2. In the panel area, set the switch to nodes.

3. Click nodes >> by collector.

4. Select the component, RigidPlate.

5. Click select.

6. Click add. Engineering Solutions adds the slave selection to the group Airbag_Plate.

7. Click return.

Step 18: View the master and slave entities

1. In the Solver browser, *CONTACT > *CONTACT NODES TO SURFACE folder, right-click on
Airbag_Plate and select Review from the context menu. The master and slave entities temporarily

display blue and red, respectively. All of the other entities temporarily display gray.
2. Return all of the entities to their regular display color by right-clicking on Airbag_Plate and

selecting Reset Review from the context menu.

Step 19: Review the created solver entities using the Solver Browser
1. In the Solver browser, *CONTACT > *CONTACT_AIRBAG_SINGLE_SURFACE folder, right-click

on airbag and select Review from the context menu. The master and slave entities temporarily display

blue and red, respectively. All of the other entities temporarily display gray.

Note: Only slave (red) entities are shown because there are no master entities for this type of

contact.

2. Return all of the entities to their regular display color by right-clicking on airbag and selecting Reset
Review from the context menu.
3. In the Solver browser, *CONTACT > *CONTACT NODES TO SURFACE folder, right-click on
Airbag_Plate and select Isolate Only from the context menu. Only the elements/components

that are implicated in this contact display.

Tip: If master and slave entities are not visible, make sure the Show/Isolate/IsolateOnly/
Attached checkbox is selected in the Options tab of the Browser Configuration dialog. Access the
Browser Configuration dialog by right-clicking in the Model browser and selecting

Configure Browser from the context menu.

4. In the Solver browser, *CONTACT > *CONTACT_AIRBAG_SINGLE_SURFACE folder, right-click

on airbag and select Show from the context menu. The entire airbag displays, as this entity contains the

entire airbag.
5. In the *INITIAL > *INITIAL_VELOCITY folder, right-click on velocity and select Review from the
context menu. The nodes on which velocity was applied displays.

6. Return all of the entities to their regular display color by right-clicking on velocity and selecting

Reset Review from the context menu.

Step 20: Export the model to an LS-DYNA 971 formatted input file
1. From the menu bar, click File > Export > Solver Deck. The Export tab opens.

2. From the Template list, select Keyword971.

3. In the File field, navigate to your working directory and save the file as airbag_complete.key.

4. Next to Export options, click .

5. From the Export list, select All.

6. Click Export.
Step 21 (Optional): Submit the LS-DYNA input file to LS-DYNA 970
1. From the Start menu, open the LS-DYNA Manager program.

2. From the solvers menu, select Start LS-DYNA analysis.

3. Load the file airbag_complete.key.

4. Click OK to start the analysis.

Step 22 (Optional): View the results in Altair HyperView

The exercise is complete. Save your work to an Altair HyperMesh file.
CRASH-1300: Rigid Wall, Model Data, Constraints, Cross Section, and Output Using LS-
DYNA

In this tutorial, you will learn how to:

• Create *PART_INERTIA for the vehicle mass component to partially take into account the inertia
properties and mass of the missing parts.
• Create velocity on all nodes but the barrier nodes with *DEFINE_BOX and *INITIAL_VELOCITY.
• Make the closest row of nodes of the crash boxes a part of the vehicle mass rigid body with
*CONSTRAINED_EXTRA_NODES.
• Create a contact between the crash boxes, the bumper, and the barrier with
*CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_GENERAL.
• Specify the output of resultant forces for a plane on the left interior and exterior crash boxes
with *DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION_PLANE.
• Create a stationary rigid wall to constrain further movement of the barrier after impact with
*RIGIDWALL_PLANAR_FINITE.
• Specify some nodes to be output to the ASCII NODOUT file with *DATABASE_HISTORY_NODE.
The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

*PART_INERTIA

The INERTIA option enables inertial properties and initial conditions to be defined rather than
calculated from the finite element mesh. This applies to rigid bodies only.

When importing a LS-DYNA model into Engineering Solutions, the *PART_INERTIA IRCS parameter
value is changed from 0 to 1. The inertia components are changed from global to local axis. This
allows inertia components to be automatically updated when *PART_INERTIA elements are
translated or rotated. When selecting *PART_INERTIA elements to translate or rotate, select
elements by comp. This selection method ensures the inertia properties are automatically updated.

*CONSTRAINED_EXTRA_NODES

This card defines extra nodes to be part of a rigid body. In Engineering Solutions, it is created from
the Model or Solver Browser.

*DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION_(Option)

*DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION_(Option) defines a cross section for resultant forces written to the

ASCII SECFORC file. The options are PLANE and SET.
For the PLANE option, a cutting plane must be defined. For best results, the plane should cleanly
pass through the middle of the elements, distributing them equally on either side.
The SET option requires the equivalent of the automatically generated input via the cutting plane to
be identified manually and defined in sets. All nodes in the cross-section and their related elements
contributing to the cross-sectional force resultants should be defined in sets.
*DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION_SET and *DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION_PLANE are created from the
Solver browser. Like the Interfaces panel, anything created from the Rigid Walls panel is an
Altair HyperMesh group. Thus, to rename, renumber, or delete a *DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION
card you must select groups from the Rename, Renumber, or Delete panels.
*RIGIDWALL

A *RIGIDWALL provides a method for treating contact between a rigid surface and nodal points of a
deformable body.

In Engineering Solutions, *RIGIDWALL keyword cards are created from the Solver browser.

Exercise: Set Up the Bumper Model for Impact Analysis

In this exercise, you will define model data, loads, constraints, a cross section, a rigid wall, and output for
an LS-DYNA analysis of a bumper in a 40 percent frontal offset crash. The bumper model is shown in the
image below.

Step 1: Load the Crash LS-DYNA user profile

1. From the Start menu, select Engineering Solutions > Crash > (HyperMesh).

2. Select the LS-DYNA profile in Crash.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Import the LS-DYNA model bumper_start.key

1. From the menu bar, click File > Import > Solver Deck. The Import tab opens.

2. In the File field, navigate to the file bumper_start.key.

3. Click Import.

Step 3: Define *PART_INERTIA for the vehicle mass component to partially

take into account the inertia properties and mass of the missing parts
1. In the Model browser, Component folder, click vehicle mass. The Entity Editor opens, and
displays the component's corresponding data.
2. Set Options to Inertia.

3. For XC (X coordinate of center of mass), enter 700.

4. For YC (Y coordinate of center of mass), enter 0.

5. For ZC (Y coordinate of center of mass), enter 170.

6. For TM (translational mass), enter 800.

7. For IXX (XX component of target inertia), enter 1.5E+07.

8. For IXY (XY component of target inertia), enter -5.0E+03.

9. For IXZ (XZ component of target inertia), enter -8.0E+06.

10. For IYY (YY component of target inertia), enter 5.0E+07.

11. For IYZ (YZ component of target inertia), enter -900.

12. For IZZ (ZZ component of target inertia), enter 6.0E+07.

13. For VTX (Initial translational velocity of rigid body in x direction), enter -10.

Step 4: Create a *DEFINE_BOX that contains all nodes except barrier nodes
1. Open the Solver browser by clicking View > Solver Browser from the menu bar.
2. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *DEFINE > *DEFINE_BOX from the context
menu. A new block opens in the Entity Editor.
3. For Name, enter box velocity.

4. Optional: Click the Color icon, and select a color for the block.
5. For Xmin Ymin Zmin, enter -530, -800, 0.

6. For Xmax Ymax Zmax, enter 200, 800, 300.

Step 5: Create initial velocity on all nodes except barrier nodes

A velocity boundary condition can also be created on a set of nodes by clicking on the Collectors
toolbar, and selecting Initialvel as the card image.

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *INITIAL > *INITIAL_VELOCITY from the
context menu. A new load collector opens in the Entity Editor.
2. For Name, enter velocity.

3. For VX (Initial velocity in the global X direction), enter –10.

4. Click BOXID, and then click Block.

5. In the Select Block dialog, select box velocity and then click OK.

Step 6: View the closest nodes which are in the pre-defined node entity set
(*SET_NODES_LIST) named Constrain Vehicle
Method 1

1. In the Solver browser, *SET > *SET_NODE_LIST folder, right-click on Constrain Vehicle and

select Review from the context menu. The set's nodes highlight.
2. Return all of the entities to their original display color by right-clicking on Constrain Vehicle and
selecting Reset Review from the context menu.

Method 2
1. From the Setup page, click entity sets.

2. In the Entity Sets panel, click review.

3. Set the display RLs/hide RLs toggle to hide RLs.

Note: This option filters all nodal rigid body sets from the list.

4. Select the set, Constrain Vehicle. The set's nodes highlight.

5. Close the panel by clicking return.

Step 7: Create *CONSTRAINED_EXTRA_NODES_SET

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *CONSTRAINED >
*CONSTRAINED_EXTRA_NODES_SET from the context menu. A new constrained extra node opens
in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter ExtraNodes.

3. For PID, click Unspecified >> Component.

4. In the Select Component dialog, select vehicle mass and then click OK.
Step 8: Define the nodes in the Constrain Vehicle set to be a part of the vehicle
mass rigid body
In this step, the Entity Editor should still be open for the ExtraNodes constrained extra node.

1. For NSID, click Unspecified >> Set.

2. In the Select Set dialog, select Constrain Vehicle and then click OK.

Step 9: View the extra nodes that are a part of the vehicle mass rigid body
1. In the Solver browser, right-click on ExtraNodes and select Review from the context menu. The
extra nodes temporarily display red, and PID (vehicle mass) displays blue. All of the other entities
temporarily display gray.

2. Return all of the entities to their original display color by right-clicking on ExtraNodes and selecting
Reset Review from the context menu.

Step 10: Create an entity set, *SET_PART_LIST, for the vehicle mass component
All other components not in this set will be included in the contact.
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SET > *SET_PART > *SET_PART_LIST
from the context menu. A new set opens in the Entity Editor.
2. For name, enter Exempt Parts.

3. For Entity IDs, click 0 Components >> Components.

4. In the Select Components dialog, select vehicle mass and then click OK.

Step 11: Create *CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_GENERAL contact

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *CONTACT >
*CONTACT_AUTOMATIC_GENERAL from the context menu. A new group opens in the Entity
Editor.

2. For name, enter impact.

Step 12: Define the slave surface with slave set type 6, part set ID for
exempted parts
In this step the Entity Editor should still be open for the impact group.

1. Click SSID.

2. Set the entity selector to Set.

3. Click Set.

4. In the Select Set dialog, select Exempt Parts and then click OK.

5. Select the ExemptSlvPartSet checkbox. The SSTYPE (slave surface type) value changes from 2
(part set ID) to 6 (part set ID for exempted parts).

Step 13: Create an entity set, *SET_PART_LIST, to specify the elements that

will contribute to the cross-sectional force results

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *SET > *SET_PART > *SET_PART_LIST
from the context menu. A new set opens in the Entity Editor.
2. For Name, enter XsectionPlane-Parts.

3. For Entity IDs, click 0 Components > Components.

4. In the Select Components dialog, select interior crashbox and exterior crashbox.

5. Click OK.

Step 14: Define a section by creating *DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION_PLANE

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *DATABASE >
*DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION_PLANE from the context menu. A new cross section opens in the
Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter Xsection_Plane.

Step 15: Define the location and size of the section's plane
In this step the plane’s origin (the tail of the normal vector) is defined by a base node.

The Entity Editor should still be open for the Xsection_Plane cross section.

1. Open the Create Nodes panel by clicking Geometry > Create > Nodes > XYZ from the menu bar,

or by pressing F8.

2. In the x field, enter -320.

3. In the y field, enter -500.

4. In the z field, enter 100.

5. Click create. A new node displays.

6. Click return.

7. In the Entity Editor, click XTAIL, YTAIL, ZTAIL (base node), and then click .

8. In the graphics area, select the base node you just created.

Tip: If the base node is not visible, click on the Visualization toolbar to display elements as a
wireframe (skin only).
9. Click proceed. The Entity Editor displays the coordinates of the base node in the XTAIL, YTAIL,
ZTAIL field.

10. Set Geometry type to Finite plane.

11. Click Normal, and then click .

12. In the panel area, set the orientation selector to x-axis.

13. Click proceed.

14. Click Edge, and then click .

15. In the panel area, set the orientation selector to y-axis.

16. Click proceed. The Entity Editor displays the coordinates of the edge vector L in the Normal field.

17. For LENL (length of edge a, in the L direction), enter 100.

18. For LENM (length of edge b, in the M direction), enter 200.

Step 16: Specify the parts slave to the rigid wall
In this step the Entity Editor should still be open for the Xsection_Plane cross section.

1. For PSID, click Unspecified >> Set.

2. In the Select Set dialog, select XsectionPlane-Parts and then click OK.

Step 17: View the entities slave to the rigid wall

1. In the Solver browser, right-click on Xsection_Plane and select Review from the context menu.

The slave entities and rigid wall highlight. All of the other entities temporarily display gray.

2. Return all of the entities to their original display color by right-clicking on Xsection_Plane and
selecting Reset Review from the context menu.
Step 18: Create a *DEFINE_BOX containing the nodes making up the barrier

and bumper’s left side

These nodes will be slave to the rigid wall.

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *DEFINE > *DEFINE_BOX from the context
menu. A new block opens in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter half model.

3. Optional. Click the Color icon and select a color to display the block.

4. For Xmin Ymin Zmin, enter -600, -800, 0.

5. For Xmax Ymax Zmax, enter -460, 0, 400.

Step 19: Define an Altair HyperMesh group by creating
*RIGIDWALL_PLANAR_FINITE
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create >*RIGIDWALL >
*RIGIDWALL_PLANAR_FINITE from the context menu. A new group opens in the Entity Editor.

2. For Name, enter wall.

Step 20: Define the location and size of the rigid wall
In the Create Nodes panel, XYZ subpanel, the rigid wall’s origin (the tail of the normal vector) is defined
by a base node. In this step, you will create a node from the create nodes panel and then select it for the
base node.

In this step the Entity Editor should still be open for the wall group.

1. Open the Create Nodes panel by pressing F8.

2. Go to the XYZ subpanel by clicking .

3. In the x field, ener -600.

4. In the y field, enter -750.

5. In the z field, enter 90.

6. Click create.
7. Click return.
8. In the Entity Editor, for Base node, click Unspecified >> Node.

9. In the graphics area, select the node you just created.

Tip: If the base node is not visible, click on the Visualization toolbar to display elements as a
wireframe (skin only).

10. Click proceed.

11. Set Geometry type to Finite plane.

12. Click Normal, and then click .

13. In the panel area, set the orientation selector to x-axis.

14. Click proceed.

15. Click Edge Vector L, and then click .

16. In the panel area, set the orientation selector to y-axis.

17. Click proceed.

18. For Length X, enter 165.

19. For Length Y, enter 250.

Note: The input values for Length X and Length Y are the length of the edges a and b in the L and

M directions, respectively. These values define the extent of the wall.

Step 21: Edit the card image for the rigid wall to specify the nodes in the
*DEFINE_BOX half model as slave to the rigid wall
In this step the Entity Editor should still be open for the wall group.

1. Click BOXID >> Block.

2. In the Select Block dialog, select half model and then click OK.

3. For Fric (Interface friction), enter 1.0.

Step 22: Specify some nodes to be output to the ASCII NODOUT file with
*DATABASE_HISTORY_NODE
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > *DATABASE >
*DATABASE_HISTORY_NODE from the context menu. A new output block opens in the Entity
Editor.
2. For Name, enter nodeth.

3. For Entity IDs, click 0 Nodes >> Nodes.

4. In the graphics area, select a few nodes of interest.

5. Click proceed.

Step 23: Export the model to an LS-DYNA 970 formatted input file
1. From the menu bar, click File > Export > Solver Deck. The Export tab opens.

2. Set File type to LsDyna.

3. In the File field, navigate to your working directory and save the file as Bumper_complete.key.

4. Click Export.

Step 24 (Optional): Submit the LS-DYNA input file to LS-DYNA 970 solver
1. From the Start menu, open the LS-DYNA Manager program.

2. From the solvers menu, select Start LS-DYNA analysis.

3. Load the file bumper_complete.key.

4. Click OK to start the analysis.

Step 25 (Optional): View the results in Altair HyperView

The exercise is complete. Save your work to an Altair HyperMesh file.
CRASH-2000: Front Impact Bumper Model

For this tutorial it is recommended to complete the introductory tutorial RD-3520: Pre-Processing for
Pipes Impact Using Altair Radioss for basic concepts on the Altair Radioss interface.

In this tutorial you will learn how to set up a Altair Radioss input deck for analysis of the impact of a
bumper against a barrier behind a rigid wall. The modeling steps that are covered are:

• Associating /PART, with /MAT and /PROP.

• Converting node-to-node connections (/RBODY) into a mesh-less welding formulation
(/INTER/TYPE2 with /SPRING) using connectors.
• Defining the contact for the elements in the bumper with an /INTER/TYPE7 card.
• Defining the interaction between bumper and barrier with an /INTER/TYPE7 card.
• Defining the interaction between barrier and rigid wall with the /RWALL/PLANE and /BOX/RECTA
cards.
• Specify the output of resultant forces for a plane on the left interior and exterior crash boxes
with /SECT.
• Creating a /TH/NODE card to output time history for nodes.
The units used in the model are millisecond, millimeter and kilogram (ms, mm, kg), and the tutorial is
based on Altair Radioss Block 14.0.

The model used consists of a simplified bumper model (see image below):

Bumper model

The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the Engineering Solutions - Altair Radioss User Profile

1. From the Start menu, select Engineering Solutions > Crash (HyperMesh) or click on
the Standard toolbar.

2. Select Crash and RADIOSS.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Load the Model File

 1. In the Standard toolbar, click the Open Model icon and browse to select the bumper.hm
file.

2. Click Open. The model loads into the graphics area.

Step 3: Define Vehicle Mass Component to Partially Take into Account the
Inertia Properties and Mass of the Missing Parts of the Vehicle

1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Component. The Entity Editor (EE) will
open.

2. For Name, enter Vehicle mass.

3. Set Card Image to None and click Yes to confirm.

4. Click Geometry > Create > Nodes > XYZ to open the Nodes panel.

5. In the x field, enter 700.

6. In the y field, enter 0.

7. In the z field, enter 170.

8. Click create to create the node.

9. Go to the Setup page, and click rigids.

10. Click the selector arrow nodes 2-n: and select sets.

11. For primary node, select the node created in the steps above.

12. Click sets and select the Constrain Vehicle set.

13. With all the DOF’s checked, click create to create the rigid body.

Note: A spider will be drawn connecting the created node to the

edge nodes of the structure modeled.

14. Click the Card Edit icon in the Collectors toolbar, set the selector to elements and select
the rigid body created.

15. Click edit.

16. Fill the mass and inertia information in the card image, as shown in the table below:

Ma JXX JXY JXZ JYY JYZ JZZ

ss

800 1.5E+07 -5.0E+03 -8.0E+06 5.0E+07 -900 6.0E+07

17. Set ICOG as 4 and set Ispher as 0.

18. Click return to exit the panel.

Step 4: Create a GRNOD/BOX/RECTA that Contains all Nodes Except Barrier

Nodes

1. Click View > Solver Browser to activate the Solver browser, if it is not active on your screen.
2. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > BOX > BOX/RECTA. The Entity Editor
opens.
 3. For Name, enter box velocity.

4. Optionally, select a Color.

5. Enter Corner1 and Corner2 X, Y, and Z coordinates, as shown below.

Step 5: Create Initial Velocity on Bumper Except Barrier

1. Select BC's Manager from the Utility menu or click the BCs Manager icon in the Crash
toolbar.

2. In the BCs Manager, enter Name as tran_vel.

3. Select the Select type as Initial Velocity under the Create header.

4. Set the entity selector to BOX under GRNOD.

5. Click on it and select box velocity.

6. Enter -10, 0, 0 for Vx, Vy and Vz fields, respectively.

7. After the above step, a set named InitialVelocity_grnodbox is created automatically or you
can create this set before the above step and then refer to this set in the above step, instead of
BOX.

8. Click the Create > Close.

Step 6: Define Master Surface for Contact

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > SURF_EXT > PART. The Entity Editor
opens.
2. For Name, enter barrier_surface.

3. For Entity IDs, click on Components.

4. In the Select Components dialog, select barrier and click OK.

5. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > SURF > PART. The Entity Editor opens.

6. For Name, enter bumper_surface.

7. For Entity IDs, click on Components.

8. In the Select Components dialog, select bumper, exterior crashbox left, exterior crashbox
right, interior crashbox left, and interior crashbox right and click OK.

9. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > SURF > SURF. The Entity Editor opens.

10. For Name, enter barrier_bumper_surface.

11. For Entity IDs, select Sets.

12. Click on Sets and select barrier_surface and bumper_surface and click OK.
Step 7: Create Self Impact Contact Between Parts of the Bumper

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > INTER > TYPE7. The Entity Editor
opens.

2. For Name, enter impact.

3. For Grnod_id (S) (slave entity), set the selector to Components.

4. Click Components, select bumper, interior crashbox (left and right) and exterior
crashbox (left and right) and click OK.

5. For Surf_id (M) (master entity), set the selector to Set.

6. Click Set, select barrier_bumper_surface and click OK.

7. Set Igap to 2.

8. For the static coefficient Fric, enter 0.15.

Step 8: Create a System that Specifies the Location and the Cross Section
Plane Normal

1. Click the Display Numbers icon on the Display toolbar.

2. Click the node selector and select by ID.

3. For the IDs enter 6227, 6224, 5993.

4. Check the display checkbox on.

5. Click On.

Note: Node numbers will appear next to the node for selection in
further steps.

6. From the Setup page, click systems.

7. Go to the create by node reference page.

8. Select Node ID 6224 for origin node.

9. Select Node ID 6227 for z axis.

10. Select Node ID 5993 for yz plane.

11. Click create to create a system.

12. Click the Card Edit icon on the Collectors toolbar.

13. Set the entity selector to systs.

14. Select the system and click edit.

15. Change the option from Skew to Frame.
 16. Click return.

Step 9: Create a Set of Elements that will Contribute to the Cross-Sectional

Force Results

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > GRSHEL > SHEL. The Entity Editor opens.

2. For Name, enter CrosssectionPlane-elements.

3. For Entity IDs, toggle to Elements selector active, select two rows of element on either side of the
system, as shown in figure below.

Step 10: Define a Section

1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > SECT > SECT.

2. For Name, enter Crosssection_Plane.

3. For Frame_ID, select the system defined in the previous step by clicking on the screen.
4. For grshel_ID, select the set CrosssectionPlane-elements which is defined in previous step, as

shown below.
Step 11: Select the Section for Time History Output

1. Right-click in the Solver browser and select Create > TH > SECTIO.

2. For Name, enter Section_force.

3. For Entity IDs, toggle Crosssections and select Crosssection_Plane.

4. For NUM_VARIABLES, select 1 and for Data: Var, enter DEF. This selects the default output
for Altair Radioss.
Step 12: Create a BOX/RECTA and GRNOD/BOX Containing the Nodes Making
up the Barrier and Bumper’s Left Side

These nodes will be slave to the rigid wall.

1. In the Solver browser right-click and select Create > BOX > BOXRECTA.

2. For Name, enter half model.

3. Optionally, select a Color.

4. Enter Corner1 and Corner2 X, Y and Z coordinates, as shown below:

5. Right-click in the Solver browser and select Create > GRNOD > BOX.

6. For Name, enter RigidwallSlave_grnodbox.

7. For Entity IDs, set the selector to Box and select the above created half model
(BOX/RECTA).

Step 13: Define a Rigid Wall

1. Press the F8 key to enter the Create Nodes panel.

2. Select the XYZ ( ) subpanel.

3. For x=, y= and z=, enter the values –600, -750 and 90, respectively.
 4. Click create.

5. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > RWALL > PLANE.

6. For Name, enter wall.

7. Set Geometry type as Infinite Plane.

8. With the Base node selector active, select the node that was created in step 4.

9. Set Normal to 1,0,0.

10. For grnod_id1 (S), toggle Set and select RigidWallSlave_grnodbox (GRNOD/BOX).

11. For fric, specify 1.0 for the friction coefficient.

Step 14: Create Output Requests and Control Cards

1. Launch the Solver browser by clicking View > Solver Browser.

2. Right-click in the Solver browser general area to create the cards, shown below, with the given
values for each parameter:

Keyword Keyword Parameter Parameter Value

Type

CONTROL TITLE Status [Checked]

CARDS

CONTROL TITLE TITLE Bumper_Impact

CARDS

ENGINE RUN Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE RUN Tstop 20

KEYWORDS

ENGINE PARITH Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE PARITH Keyword2 ON

KEYWORDS

ENGINE PRINT Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE PRINT N_Print -1000

KEYWORDS

ENGINE TFILE Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE TFILE Time Frequency 0.1

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/ELEM Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/ELEM EPSP [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/ELEM VONM [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/BRICK/TENS Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/BRICK/TENS STRESS [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/BRICK/TENS STRAIN [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/SHELL/TENS/STRESS Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS
 ENGINE ANIM/SHELL/TENS/STRESS MEMB [Checked]
KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/SHELL/TENS/STRAIN Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/SHELL/TENS/STRAIN MEMB [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/VECT Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/VECT DISP [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/VECT VEL [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/DT Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/DT TStart 0

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/DT Tfreq 1

KEYWORDS

ENGINE DT/NODA Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE DT/NODA CST 0 – Tmin 3.6e-4

KEYWORDS

Step 15: Export the Model

1. Click File > Export or click the Export icon .

2. For File, click the folder icon and navigate to the destination directory where you want to run.
3. Enter the name as bumper_impact and click Save.

4. Click the downward-pointing arrows next to Export options to expand the panel.
5. Toggle Merge starter and engine file to export the engine file with the model file.

6. Click Export to export both model and engine file.

Step 16: Run the Solver using RADIOSS Manager

1. Go to Start > Programs > Altair HyperWorks <version> RADIOSS.

2. For Input file, browse to the exercise folder and select the file bumper_impact_0000.rad.
Step 17: (Optional): View the Results in Altair HyperView

The exercise is complete. Save your work to an Altair HyperMesh file.

CRASH-2100: Simplified Car Front Pole Impact

The goal of this tutorial is to simulate a frontal pole test with a simplified full car.

The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Model Description

• UNITS: Length (mm), Time (s), Mass (ton), Force (N) and Stress (MPa)
• Simulation time: Engine file (_0001.rad) [0 – 0.0601 ms]

• An initial velocity of 15600 mm/s is applied on the car model to impact a rigid pole of radius
250 mm.
• Elasto-plastic Material /MAT/LAW2 (Windshield)

[Rho_I] Initial Density = 2.5x10-9 ton/mm3

[E] Young's Modulus = 76000 MPa

[nu] Poisson’s Ratio = 0.3

[a] Yield Stress = 192 MPa

[b] Hardening Parameter = 200 MPa

[n] Hardening Exponent = 0.32

• Elasto-plastic Material /MAT/LAW2 (Rubber)

[Rho_I] Initial Density = 2x10-9 ton/mm3

[E] Young's Modulus = 200 MPa

[nu] Poisson’s Ratio = 0.49

[a] Yield Stress = 1e30 MPa

[n] Hardening Exponent = 1

• Elasto-plastic Material /MAT/LAW2 (Steel)

 [Rho_I] Initial Density = 7.9x10-9 ton/mm3
[E] Young's Modulus = 210000 MPa

[nu] Poisson’s Ratio = 0.3

[a] Yield Stress = 200 MPa

[b] Hardening Parameter = 450 MPa

[n] Hardening Exponent = 0.5

[SIG_max] Maximum Stress = 425 MPa

Exercise

Step 1: Load the Engineering Solutions Altair Radioss user profile

1. From the Start menu, select Engineering Solutions > Crash (HyperMesh) or click on the
Standard toolbar.

2. Select Crash > RADIOSS.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Load the model file

1. Click the Open Model icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. In the Open Model dialog, navigate to the fullcar.hm file.

3. Click Open. The model loads into the graphics area.

Step 3: Create and assign the material for the windshield components
1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Material. The Entity Editor is displayed
below the Model browser.

2. For Name, enter windshield.

3. Set Card Image as M2_PLAS_JOHNS_ZERIL and click Yes to confirm.

4. Input the values, as shown below:

5. In the Model browser, select components COMP-PSHELL_3 and COMP-PSHELL_16.
6. Click Mat_Id in the EE, select the material windshield and click OK to update the selected
components with the created material.

Step 4: Create and assign the material for the rubber components
1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Material. The Entity Editor is displayed.

2. For Name, enter rubber.

3. Set Card Image to M2_PLAS_JOHNS_ZERIL and click Yes to confirm.

4. Input the values, as shown below:

5. In the Model browser, select components COMP-PSHELL_20 through COMP-PSHELL_23.

6. For Mat_Id, select the material rubber and click OK to update the selected components with
the created material.

Step 5: Create Steel material and assign to all other parts

1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Material. The Entity Editor is displayed.
2. For Name, enter steel.

3. Set Card Image to M2_PLAS_JOHNS_ZERIL.

4. Input the values, as shown below:

5. In the Model browser select all components labeled with COMP-PSHELL and COMP-PROD,
except COMP-PSHELL_3, COMP-PSHELL_16 and COMP-PSHELL_20 to COMP-PSHELL_23.
6. For Mat_Id, select the material steel and click OK to assign the material to the selected
components.

Step 6: Create a Rigid Wall

1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Rigid Wall. The Entity Editor is
displayed.

2. For Name, enter ground.

3. Set Geometry type as Infinite plane.

4. Click Base node and select 'any node' from the model.

5. Define the normal vector Z = -1.

6. Set distance d = 300.

7. Go to the Setup > Rigid Walls panel.
8. Move to the geom page.

9. Click name and select Ground from the list.

10. Click the edit tab besides base node and change values of the coordinates as indicated below.

X = -2300, Y = 1200, and Z = -1.

11. Click update > return.

Step 7: Create a Cylindrical Rigid Wall to represent Pole

1. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Rigid Wall. The Entity Editor will display.

2. For Name, enter pole.

3. Set the Geometry type as Cylinder.

4. Click Base node and select ‘any node’ from the model.

5. Define the normal vector Z= 1.

6. For Radius node, do not select anything. Leave it as <Unspecified>.

7. Set distance d= 1500.

8. Go to Setup > Rigid Walls panel.

9. Move to the geom page.

10. Click name and select Pole from the list.

11. Click the edit tab besides base node and change values of the coordinates as indicated below.

X = -320, Y = 1250, and Z = 0.

12. Set Radius = 250.

13. Click update > return.

Step 8: Defining Contact using TYPE 7 interface (Self Contact)

1. Hide all the 1D (TRUSSES) and 3D (SOLID) parts in the model by going to the Solver browser
PROP > SHELL, Isolate only. Return to the Model browser.

2. From the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Contact. The Entity Editor will display.
3. For Name, enter CAR_CAR.

4. Set Card Image to TYPE7 and click Yes to confirm.

5. Set the option to Components for Surf_id (M) (master entity), and select displayed
components and click OK.

6. Input other parameters as shown below.

Step 9: Defining Contact using TYPE 7 interface between Engine and
Radiator
1. In the Solver browser, right-click and select Create > SURF_EXT > PART.

2. For Name, enter engine.

3. Click on Components and select COMP-PSOLID_24.

4. In the Model browser, right-click and select Create > Contact.

5. For Name, enter ENGINE_RADIATOR and set the Card Image as TYPE7 and click Yes to
confirm.
6. For Grnod_id (S) (slave entity), set the selector switch to Components and click
Components, select COMP-PSOLID_26.

7. For Surf_id (M) (master entity), set the selector switch to Set and click Set, select engine.

8. Input the values, as shown below:

Step 10: Defining initial velocity

1. From the Utility menu, click the BC's Manager or click the BCs Manager icon in the Crash
toolbar.

2. For Name, enter 35MPH, set the Select type field to Initial Velocity and set GRNOD to Parts.

3. Click comps and select all of the parts in the model.

4. Set Vx as 15600.

5. Click Create to create the boundary condition and boundary condition appears in the table.
6. Click Close.

Step 11: Create Time History Nodes

1. In the Model browser, isolate COMP-PSHELL_19.

2. Click Tools > Create Solver Cards > TH > NODE.

3. For Name, enter RAIL and select nodes on the Rail.

4. For NUM_VARIABLES, select 1 and for Data: Var, enter the following:
Step 12: Create output requests and control cards
1. Launch the Solver browser by selecting View > Solver Browser.
2. Right-click in the Solver browser general area to create the cards shown below with the given
values for each parameter:

Keyword Type Keyword Parameter Parameter Value

CONTROL CARDS TITLE Status [Checked]

CONTROL CARDS TITLE TITLE Car_Analysis

ENGINE RUN Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE RUN Run Number 1

KEYWORDS

ENGINE RUN Tstop 0.0601

KEYWORDS

ENGINE PRINT Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE PRINT N_Print -1000

KEYWORDS

ENGINE TFILE Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE TFILE Time Frequency 9e-5

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/ELEM Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/ELEM EPSP [Checked]

KEYWORDS
 ENGINE ANIM/ELEM VONM [Checked]
KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/ELEM HOURG [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/VECT Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/VECT VEL [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/VECT CONT [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/VECT FOPT [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/DT Status [Checked]

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/DT TStart 0

KEYWORDS

ENGINE ANIM/DT Tfreq 0.003

KEYWORDS

Step 13: Export the model

1. Click File > Export or click the Export icon .

2. Enter a filename in the destination directory where you want to run.

3. Enter the name FULLCAR and click Save.

4. Click the downward-pointing arrows next to Export options to expand the panel.

5. Click Merge starter and engine file to export the engine file with the model in one file.
6. Click Export to export both model and engine file.

Step 14: Run the solver using Altair Radioss Manager

1. Go to Start > Programs > Altair HyperWorks <version> RADIOSS.
2. For Input file, browse to the exercise folder and select the file FULLCAR_0000.rad.
Step 15 (Optional): View the Results in Altair HyperView
The exercise is complete. Save your work to an Altair HyperMesh file.
CRASH-2200: Pedestrian Head Impact Simulation

The goal of this tutorial is to see how head impact simulation following the pedestrian safety regulation
EuroNCAP can be defined using the Pedestrian Impact tool starting from a full vehicle model.
Pedestrian Impact automates the process with minimal input from you, therefore reducing the deck
generation lead time with less human error.

Model Description

The vehicle model used in this tutorial is based on the free Toyota Yaris model, provided by the
National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) (http://www.ncac.gwu.edu/vml/models.html). The original
LS-DYNA model has been converted and validated with Altair Radioss. The files needed for this
tutorial are located in Toyota_YarisD_V2h_RADV12_000.rad in the es.zip file. Copy these files into
a local directory before proceeding with this tutorial.
Step 1: Load the Engineering Solutions Altair Radioss User Profile

1. From the Start menu, select Engineering Solutions > Crash (HyperMesh) or click on the
Standard toolbar.

2. Select Crash > RADIOSS.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Pedestrian Impact Tool

1. Click Safety > Pedestrian Impact from the menu bar.

2. Select a directory location for the instance.pmi file. This file allows you to save the ongoing
process and retrieve it by opening a new Altair HyperMesh/pedestrian impact session.

3. Select your local directory where the input data has been saved and click Create/Open.
 Invoking Pedestrian Impact opens a Process Manager tab that guides you through the
process. You can go from one task to the next by clicking Next and Apply only on the input
panel.

Step 3: Import Vehicle and Trimming Process

The first two steps of the pedestrian impact process consist of importing the vehicle model and
trimming the vehicle.

1. Import the vehicle model by selecting RADIOSS as the File type.

2. Select Toyota_YarisD_V2h_RADV12_v02_0000.rad for the Vehicle file.

3. Define the vehicle direction (+veX) and the model unit system (N,mm,s,T), as shown below,
 and click Import.

4. Click Yes when prompted to delete all of the existing models.

For the pedestrian protection protocol only the front end of the vehicle participates. The trim
functionality allows for cutting the full vehicle model and retaining only a selected portion. As a
part of this process fixed boundary conditions are created at the boundary of the trimmed
section. The trim process is optional.

5. Define the Region to keep (Front) and the Trim Distance (2,000), as shown below.

6. Clicking Preview allows visualizing the portion of the vehicle that will be kept after the
trimming operation.

7. Click Trim to activate the trimming operation. Once this operation is completed the vehicle
model should look like the one shown in the image below.

8. This completes the import and trimming step. Click Next to open the Vehicle Positioning
panel to complete the next step.

Note: Once a step has been successfully completed, the check next
to the panel name will turn green in color to indicate that it is
completed.
Step 4: Vehicle Positioning

The Vehicle Positioning panel is used to define the vehicle and ground position. In this example, the
vehicle position does not need to be changed. The ground level is at Z=0, therefore no translation of the
ground is needed.

1. Activate the Show Ground checkbox to toggle on the ground display.

2. Click Next to open the Import Impactor panel to complete the next step.

Step 5: Pedestrian Impact Load Case Selection

The Pedestrian Impact tool supports every pedestrian impact load case including head impact,
upper leg impact and lower leg impact.
 The Impactor Type you select in this step will determine the load case definition for the rest of the
process.

1. Select Head as the Impactor Type.

2. Select RADIOSS as the File type.

3. Select head_simplified_Mgmms_0000.rad, as shown below, and click Import.

4. Click Next to open the Vehicle Marking panel to complete the next step.

Step 6: Vehicle Marking Process

For the head impact load case, different types of regulations can be used to define the impact zone and

target points:

• EuroNCAP
• Global Technical Regulation (GTR No. 9)
• European Regulation (ECE)

Note: EuroNCAP protocols for head impact target point definitions are identical for versions 6.1, 7.0 and
8.0, and are supported in the Pedestrian Impact tool's vehicle marking process.

For each regulation, parameters used for the marking process are automatically defined.
1. Select EuroNCAP for the regulation.

2. Select the Vehicle Front Components.

3. Select the Windshield and A-pillar Components.

Note: Wiper components are not modeled and can be ignored.

4. Specify the location where the .csv file used for the target point export has to be saved.

5. Click Apply.

When the marking process is finished, grid points as well as impact zone lines are displayed on the

vehicle.
 6. Click Next to open the Position Impactor panel to complete the next step.

Step 7: Impactor Positioning and Model Set-Up

1. In order to review the hard contact zones and detect critical impact zones, specify the Hood
Components groups by selecting the hood parts and the Hard Components groups by
selecting all engine block parts.

2. Click Draw to review the hard contact zones.

3. Click Add New Target to add new target points and select the nodes in the graphics area.
Additional target points can also be defined by importing a .csv file containing target point
information.
4. To export target points, select the impact points in the table that need to be exported. This
option allows transferring target point definitions into CAD format that can be read back into
Altair HyperMesh.

5. Specify the Target Sphere Radius and Output Directory.

6. Click Export Target. The file ReferenceLinesAndTargetCollector.jt is created in the

Output Directory specified.
7. To review the impactor position for specified target points, click on the Review radio button for
the first point, C_0_0, for example. The impactor will be automatically positioned, as shown in
the image below.
 8. Click Apply to open the Define Contact panel to complete the next step.

Step 8: Contact Definition

1. Select Create New Contact for the Contact Method.

2. Activate the Use previously selected components for contact creation checkbox.

3. Click Apply to automatically generate the contacts and open the Export panel.

Step 9: Export Solver Decks for Selected Impact Points

This tool exports input decks in a folder structure with different includes for the master model for the
selected target points. A typical export directory of the tool is shown in the image below.
 A folder is created for each target point selected. The name of the folder is based on the target
location names (C_0_0 …). These folders contain:

• The master file for that location

• The engine file
• An include file that contains the transformation card (allows you to move the impactor to the
target point location).
1. Select the impact points that will be taken into account for the simulation. For this tutorial, you
will select C_0_0.

2. Select the Export options, as shown below.

3. Define the solver control cards, as shown below.

4. Clicking Engine File Preview allows reviewing and editing the RADIOSS Engine file. Additional
outputs can be defined in the dialog. Request output of plastic strain and Von Mises Stress, for
 example, by adding /ANIM/ELEM/EPSP and /ANIM/ELEM/VONM.

5. Click Save in the Engine File dialog.

Note: It is recommended to run the Model Checker to verify the

validity of the model.

6. Click Output > Checks > Model Checker.

7. If no errors are found, click Export to generate the Altair Radioss input deck for the selected
impact point.
Step 10: Impact Simulation with Altair Radioss

1. Go to Start > Programs > Altair HyperWorks <version> RADIOSS.

2. For Input file, browse to the exercise folder and select the file C_0_0_0000.rad. It is
recommended to control that the unit systems in the main input deck C_0_0_0000.rad are
correctly defined. In this tutorial the unit system is Mg mm s.

3. Use the following parameters and start the simulation.

CRASH-2300: Creating a Seat Mechanism Using the Mechanism Browser

The goal of this tutorial is to create a seat mechanism. The Mechanism browser provides all
functionalities to model a kinematic mechanism, for example a vehicle driver or passenger seat. All
aspects needed to define a mechanism, articulate it into a desired position and export the final data
are covered, such as:

• Definition of the bodies: Identified by parts and/or part sets and/or node sets. During
mechanism motion, each body behaves as a rigid body.
• Definition of kinematic joints: A joint defines the relative kinematic behavior between two or
three bodies. A joint defined inside the mechanism tool is independent from a joint available in
the solver.
• Mechanism check: A check is available in order to verify the validity of the defined mechanism
(bodies/joints).
• Move mechanism to target position: The mechanism can be automatically moved to a desired
position by selecting a target node or by specifying the coordinates of the target node (for
example: H-Point of a driver seat).
• Save positions: Several defined positions of a mechanism can be saved and retrieved quickly.
• Export “solver” positions: Each of the saved positions can be exported as a solver include file in
which the positions of the bodies are defined via solver transformation cards.

• Export mechanism: During solver input deck export the complete mechanism, as well as the
defined positions, are embedded inside the solver deck and described after the end (*END for
LS-DYNA; /END for Altair Radioss).

Model Description

The driver seat model used in this tutorial is based on the free Toyota Yaris model, provided by the
National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC) (http://www.ncac.gwu.edu/vml/models.html). The LS-DYNA
seat model as well as the Altair Radioss model are available. This tutorial uses the Altair Radioss
version of the seat, but each step can be reproduced using the LS-DYNA model. The files needed for
this tutorial are located in example_seat_mechanism_0000.rad in the es.zip file. Copy these files
into a local directory before proceeding with this tutorial.
Step 1: Load the Engineering Solutions Altair Radioss User Profile

1. From the Start menu, select Engineering Solutions > Crash (HyperMesh) or click on the
Standard toolbar.

2. Select Crash > RADIOSS.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Load the Model File

1. Click File > Import > Solver Deck.

2. Click the icon to browse and select the example_seat_mechanism_0000.rad file.

3. Click Import. The model loads into the graphics area.

Step 3: Open the Mechanism Browser

1. From the menu bar, click Safety > Seat Mechanism. The Mechanism browser opens.
2. Right-click and select Create > Mechanism. A mechanism named mechanism1 is created
containing two empty bodies named body1 and body2.

3. Rename mechanism1 to Driver_Seat. You can do this one of two ways. The first way is by
clicking mechanism1 to open the Entity Editor at the bottom of the browser and typing in the
Name. Or you can right-click mechanism1 > Rename in the browser.

Step 4: Define the Bodies

For the definition of the bodies, it is necessary to know which parts or nodes belong to which
kinematic assemblies. The definition of part or node sets can be done in the solver deck before
starting to define the mechanism, or directly in the body Entity Editor below the Mechanism
browser. Below are the different ways you can define the content of a body inside the body Entity
Editor.

• Select a list of components.

• Create a set of components- Card Image GRPART (for Altair Radioss) in set Entity Editor.

• Create a set of nodes- Card Image GRNOD (for Altair Radioss) in set Entity Editor.
Note: It is recommended to use sets of parts or nodes, as these
entities are directly defined and exported in the solver deck.
A body can be defined by a combination of these three
contents.

Step 5: Create the Fix_Rail Body

1. Inside the Mechanism browser, select body1 to activate the body Entity Editor.

2. Change the name of body1 to Fix_Rail. This body is Fixed to ground which means that all degrees

of freedom of this body are locked. The icon attached to this body inside the Mechanism browser

refers to this behavior.

3. Inside the Entity Editor, right-click Sets > Create. A dialog opens.

4. In the dialog, change the Name of the set to Fix_Rail_Parts and change the Card Image to

GRPART.
5. Click Entity IDs and then click the Components field.

6. Select the components defining the Fix_Rail body by selecting them on the display or in the Select

Components dialog.

7. Click OK when you are done selecting the components and close the dialog.

8. To review the body you created right-click Fix_Rail > Review inside the Mechanism browser.
9. Click Reset Review from the right-click context menu to turn off the body display mode.

Step 6: Create the Move_Rail Body

1. Inside the Mechanism browser, click body2 to activate the body Entity Editor.

2. Change the name of body2 to Move_Rail. This body is Fixed to ground which means that all
degrees of freedom of this body are locked. The icon attached to this body inside the
Mechanism browser refers to this behavior.

3. Inside the Entity Editor, right-click Sets > Create. A dialog opens.
4. In the dialog, change the name of the set to Move_Rail_Parts and change the Card Image to
GRPART.

5. Click Entity IDs and then click the Components field.

6. Select the components defining the Move_Rail body by selecting them on the display or in the
Select Components dialog.

7. Click OK when you are done selecting the components and close the dialog.
8. To review the body you created right-click Move_Rail > Review inside the Mechanism
browser.

9. Click Reset Review from the right-click context menu to turn off the body display mode.
 Move_Rail body

Note: The 1D parts modeling the spot-weld connections between

the shell meshed parts and also the set of nodes containing
the master nodes of the rigid bodies have to be taken into
account in this body.

Step 7: Create the Other Bodies

There are five more bodies to define: Roller, Front_Lever, Rear_Lever, Seat_Cushion and
Back_Seat.

1. To create a new body, right-click the mechanism and select Create > Body.

For each of these bodies, the parts and nodes sets are already defined in the model.
2. To define the content of each body, click Sets inside the body Entity Editor and retrieve the
corresponding sets in the model set-list (for example Front_Lever_Parts and
Front_Lever_Nodes sets for the Front_Lever body).
Step 8: Create the Joints

Inside a mechanism bodies are connected together via kinematic joints. The different joints available are:
• Ball: Joint having the three translational degrees of freedom (DOF) blocked. This joint is defined by t
coordinates or by a node.
• Cylinder: Joint allowing a translation and a rotation around the same axis. This joint is defined by
the axis (Origin+direction given by coordinates or node selection).
• Revolute: Same as Cylinder joint, without translation.
• Slider: Same as Cylinder, without rotation.
• Double Slider: A slider with a third body for which the motion is linked to the two main bodies
via scale factors:
 o Motion_body3 = Factor1*Motion_body1 + Factor2*Motion_body2

o Where: 0<Factor1<1 and 0<Factor1<1 and Factor2=1-Factor1

Create the Double Slider joint

1. In the Mechanism browser, select Fix_Rail and Move_Rail, and then right-click and select Connect.

Note: Another way to connect bodies: Select Fix_Rail and then right-click and
select Connect To. A dialog opens listing the available bodies. Select
Move_Rail and close the dialog.

2. Inside the joint Entity Editor select the Joint type DoubleSlider.

3. Specify Body3 by selecting Roller inside the body list.

4. Verify that Input Option is set to By Positions.

5. Under Location, activate the two checkboxes labeled Define by Node.

6. Click Origin, select a node on the rail part and click proceed.

7. Click Local Z-axis, select another node to define the direction of motion and click proceed.
8. Click Create to confirm the joint. The Double Slider joint is created in the Mechanism browser with

the three bodies defined inside, as well as on the display.

The scale factors (Factor 1 and Factor 2) defining the relative motion between Roller and Fix_Rail

and Roller and Move_Rail are set up per default to 0.5.

9. In order to change these values, select the DoubleSlider joint in the Mechanism browser and update

the value of Factor 1 in the Entity Editor (Factor 2 is directly computed as 1-Factor 1).

Define the joint limits

It is possible to define limits for each type of joint.

1. For example, in the previous DoubleSlider Entity Editor, activate the checkbox Define limits, and

provide the following limit values:

• Min distance: -100.0
• Max distance: 50.0
Create the Revolute joints

All of the other joints are revolute joints and are defined in the same way – Origin + direction in Y-Axis.
To create the revolute joint between Move_Rail and Front_Lever bodies perform the following steps.

1. Select Move_Rail and Front_Lever, right-click and select Connect.

2. In the joint Entity Editor, set Joint type to Revolute and Input Option to By Directions.

3. Click Origin and provide the coordinates of the axis-origin or define them by selecting a node. To do
that, click the blue arrow, pick a node and click proceed. The following Origin coordinates should be

used: -1661, 104 and 418.5. The Local Z-axis of the joint is oriented in the global y-axis: 0, 1, 0.

4. Click Create to confirm the creation of the revolute joint.

5. Repeat these steps to create the other revolute joints, defined as follow:

Body 1 Body 2 Origin Coordinates Local Z-axis

Move_Rail Rear_Lever -1961; 117; 408.5 0; 1; 0

Rear_Leve Seat_Cushio -2040.6; 104; 420.7 0; 1; 0

r n

Front_Lev Seat_Cushio -1722.5; 121; 475 0; 1; 0

er n

Seat_Cush Back_Seat -2067; 103.6; 506 0; 1; 0

ion

The complete seat mechanism should look like the image below.
Step 9: Check a Mechanism

In order to work correctly, there are basic checks on the mechanism that need to be performed to
ensure the validity of the mechanism.

1. Right-click the mechanism Driver_Seat > Check Mechanism. Checks will be automatically

performed to detect common nodes (checks if nodes are shared in several bodies), empty bodies and
redundant joints.

If the bodies and joints are correctly defined, all checks should be green in color .

If a check fails, a red appears and an automatic fix will be available. For example, in a case of

common nodes, a dialog opens where you can select which body the common nodes have to be

retained.

Step 10: Move a Mechanism

Before moving a mechanism, it is possible to specify what the joints are that are able to move and
those that are locked.
Define joint lock level

1. Click the lock icon of a joint. The green icon means that the joint is locked and can move.
The yellow icon means that the joint is locked and cannot move.

Move a single joint

1. Select the joint in the Mechanism browser, for example DoubleSlider on the actual
Driver_Seat, right-click and select Move. You are now able to move interactively the
DoubleSlider joint by activating the arrow on the display.

To move a joint, it is possible to use the entries in the Entity Editor.

1. Select the DoubleSlider, right-click and select Move. Current distance of the joint can be
modified by giving a desired value or using the up and down arrow buttons. Moreover, you have
control on the increments of the operations by changing the Increment value.

Move mechanism to target

Instead of moving the joints, there is the option to move the mechanism automatically by selecting
a node of a body and the target position. Typically, you can select the seat H-Point. In this example,
the following node represents the H-Point and belongs to the Seat_Cushion body.

1. To move the H-Point to a target location, select Driver_Seat in the Mechanism browser, right-
click and select Actuate Mechansim > Target Point. This opens Move to target in the Entity
Editor.
 • New position name: Define the name of the final position of the seat, for example
Target_1.
• Multiple pairs: Yes or No – Defines if the final position is based on one node and one target
(Multiple pairs = No) or based on multiple nodes and corresponding targets (Multiple pairs
= Yes). For this example, select No.
• Node/Constraint: Select the seat node, which needs to be moved to the target. Select H-
Point Node.

• Target X,Y,Z/Node: Provide the target coordinates or pick a node (blue arrow) as the
target. In this example, give the following coordinates: -1800; 330; 625.
2. Click Move, and observe that the seat is automatically positioned matching the new H-Point
target.

3. Click Save to save the new position of the seat.

Step 11: Save and Retrieve Positions

A mechanism position can be saved directly in the Move to Target Entity Editor after mechanism
positioning. Otherwise, after modifying manually the joint positions the final position can be saved.
1. Right-click Driver_Seat > Save Position as. You can create a new position or overwrite an
existing position.
2. After creating several positions you can quickly retrieve them by clicking Move Mechanism To
> Other Position.
3. Select the desired position in the list.

Note: The Initial position of the mechanism is automatically

created when the mechanism has been defined for the first
time, and thus, it is always possible to bring it to this initial
position at any time.

Step 12: Export a Position as a Solver Include File

The Mechanism browser allows you to export any saved mechanism position to a solver file
containing transformation cards and related sets of parts or sets of nodes. This allows you to
position, for example a seat, using solver entities.

1. Right-click Driver_Seat > Export Position.

2. Set the Reference position as Initial[Driver_Seat].

3. Select the Position to export, for example Target_1.

4. Define a file to export the results and click Export. The exported file can be used directly as an
include file into the initial seat model.

Step 13: Export a Mechanism using the Solver Deck

1. Click File > Export > Solver Deck.

2. Click the icon to browse and select the seat_positioned_0000.rad file.

3. Click Export.
4. Open the exported deck in a text editor and pay attention to the /END. The created
mechanism is stored between the keywords /MECHANISM_START and /MECHANISM_END.

• /ASSEMBLY: Defines a body with the different set IDs or PART IDs, for example part set
number and related set ID, number of parts and related part IDs, number of nodes set and
related set ID).
/ASSEMBLY/1
Example_of_body
1 10 1 0 0 0
1000000
2000682 2000683 2000684 6500093 6500094 6500095 6500096 2000637 2000638
2000669
2000000
• /CONNECTION_***: Defines the type of joint between ASSEMBLY
(/CONNECTION_HINGE; /CONNECTION_LINE…)
• /POSITION: Defines a position of the mechanism

Note: Reference and Initial positions should never be deleted.

If you were using the LS-DYNA solver you would see *ASSEMBLY, *CONNECTION, *POSITION

*ASSEMBLY
1Example_of_body
1 10 1 0 0 0
1000000
2000682 2000683 2000684 6500093 6500094 6500095 6500096 2000637 2000638
2000669
2000000
NVH

The following tutorials are available for the NVH user profile:

NVH-1000: Acoustic Cavity

NVH-1100: NVH Director Assembly

NVH-1000: Acoustic Cavity

The model file used in this exercise can be found in the es.zip file. Copy the file(s) from this directory
to your working directory.

Step 1: Load the Altair HyperMesh-Nastran, Altair HyperMesh-Altair

OptiStruct or NVH-Altair OptiStruct User Profile

1. Click the icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. Click HyperMesh > OptiStruct, HyperMesh > Nastran or Engineering Solutions > NVH >
OptiStruct from the User Profiles dialog.

3. Click OK.

Step 2: Open the Model

1. From the menu bar, click File > Open or click the icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. Select the acoustic.hm file.

3. Click Open to load the model into the graphics area.

Step 3: Hide the Seat Cushion Components

1. Expand the Component folder in the Model browser.

2. Select Rear_Seat_Cushion, IN-driver seat back cushion, IN-drv seat head rest, IN-
driver seat lower cushion, IN-pass seat lower cushion, and IN-pas seat head rest from
the list of components.
3. Right-click and select Hide.

Step 4: Set the Options for Creating Acoustic Cavity Mesh

The imported model has been restricted to just those parts that will be used to create the cavity.
The seat cavities have already been built in this model.

1. Click Mesh > Create > Acoustic Cavity Mesh to open the Acoustic Cavity Mesh
Generation panel.

2. Click the icon in the Acoustic Cavity toolbar. The Options dialog opens.

3. Specify options for:

Mesh type: Hexa-tetrahedra

Minimum hexa corner jacobian: 0.2

Minimum tet-collapse: 0.1

Display structural cavities Largest: 10

No. of elements per wavelength: 6

Enter property values for acoustic cavity meshes

Activate the checkbox for Create material and property cards
Step 5: Preview the Mesh

1. Click the icon in the Acoustic Cavity toolbar.

2. Click the comps selector for structure to open the Component Selection panel.
3. Click comps >> displayed to select all components.

4. Click select to complete the selection.

5. Click the comps selector for seats.

6. Click Last Page ( ) to go to the last page of components.
7. Select IN – pass seat back cushion, IN – pas seat head rest and Rear_Seat_Cushion on
this page.

8. Click Previous Page and select IN – driver seat back cushion, IN – drv seat head rest,
IN – driver seat lower cushion, and IN – pass seat lower cushion.

9. Click select to complete the selection of the seats.

10. Make sure the seat coupling toggle is set to node to node remesh.

11. Enter 40 for target element size=.

12. Enter 10 for min element size=.

 13. Enter 40 for max element size=.

14. The max frequency value will be automatically calculated and populated based on max
element size and no. of elements per wavelength from the Options dialog. It is also possible to
specify the max frequency value, and then max element size will be calculated accordingly.

15. Enter 50 for gap patch size =.

16. Enter 250 for hole patch size =.

17. Enter 45 for feature angle=.

18. Click the create hole elements checkbox to activate it.

19. Click preview to see a preview of the mesh. The mesh appears in the graphics area and the
Acoustic Cavity tab opens in the tab area. Note that the Front Door volumes are separate but
trunk volume is a part of the overall cavity.

Preview of mesh

Step 6: Review the Mesh

1. Right-click AC_Structural.1 in the Acoustic Cavity tab and click Isolate.

 AC_Structural.1 isolated

2. Right-click the other components in the list and click Show.

3. Right-click AC_Structural.1 and click Hide.

4. Click the icon next to each of the seat cavities to see the mesh.

Seats added to the visible components

Step 7: Delete Two of the Patched Holes

1. In the Model browser, right-click the ^patched_holes component and click Show.
2. Zoom into the area, as shown in the image below.

3. If necessary, right-click AC_Structural.1 and click Hide.

4. Delete the highlighted elements shown in the picture below.

5. Delete the similar type of element patch on the other side.

6. Click return to exit the panel.

Step 8: Preview the Mesh

With the patched holes deleted, the acoustic cavity mesh will be previewed again.

1. Click Reject on the Acoustic Cavity tab.

2. Click the icon on the Standard Views toolbar to reset the view of the model.

3. Click Mesh > Create > Acoustic Cavity Mesh to open the panel.
4. Click the comps selector for structure to open the Component Selection panel.

5. Click comps >> displayed to select all components.

6. Click select to complete the selection.

7. Click the comps selector for seats.

8. Click Last Page ( ) to go to the last page of components.

9. Select IN – pass seat back cushion, IN – pas seat head rest and Rear_Seat_Cushion on
this page.

10. Click Previous Page and select IN – driver seat back cushion, IN – drv seat head rest,
IN – driver seat lower cushion, and IN – pass seat lower cushion.

11. Click select to complete the selection of the seats.

12. Enter 40 for target element size=.

13. Enter 10 for min element size =.

14. Enter 40 for max element size =.

15. Enter 50 for gap patch size =.

16. Enter 0 for hole patch size =.

17. Enter 45 for feature angle =.

18. Uncheck create hole elements.

19. Click preview to preview the mesh. Note that the front door volumes are now a part of the
overall volumes.
Step 9: Create a Patch Manually for Separate Volumes

1. Click Reject.
2. Click Mesh > Hole/Gap Fill.

3. Select Patch Fill for the Fill Type.

4. Create a manual patch separating the trunk from the main volume. A new component with the
name Patch is created.
 Connection between trunk and main volumes

Patch separating trunk and main volume

5. Click Mesh > Create > Acoustic Cavity Mesh to open the panel.

6. Click the comps selector for structure to open the Component Selection panel.

7. Click comps >> displayed to select all components.

8. Click select to complete the selection.

9. Click the comps selector for seats.

10. Click Last Page ( ) to go to the last page of components.
11. Select IN – pass seat back cushion, IN – pas seat head rest and Rear_Seat_Cushion on
this page.
 12. Click Previous Page and select IN – driver seat back cushion, IN – drv seat head rest,
IN – driver seat lower cushion, and IN – pass seat lower cushion.

13. Click select to complete the selection of the seats.

14. Enter 40 for target element size=.

15. Enter 10 for min element size =.

16. Enter 40 for max element size =.

17. Enter 50 for gap patch size =.

18. Enter 0 for hole patch size =.

19. Enter 45 for feature angle =.

20. Uncheck create hole elements.

21. Click preview to preview the mesh. Note that now the main cavity and the trunk cavity is
separate. This way it is possible to create separate cavities.

22. Click Reject.

23. Delete the Patch component and repeat steps 5-21.

Step 10: Create the Mesh

1. Select AC_Structural.2 through AC_Structural.10, right-click and select Hide.

 2. Set the Response points to Read from file.
3. Click … to browse for the file.

4. Select ACOUSTIC_RESPONSE_PTS.csv and click Open.

5. Click Mesh to create the mesh.

Completed mesh

6. Click return to exit the panel.

Step 11: Rename the Components Created by the Acoustic Cavity Mesh

1. Expand the Components folder in the Model browser.

2. Right-click AC_Structural.1 and click Rename.

3. Name the component BODY_CAVITY and press ENTER.

 4. Right-click AC_Seat.1 and click Rename.

5. Name the component DRV_SEAT and press ENTER.

6. Right-click AC_Seat.2 and click Rename.

7. Name the component REAR_SEAT and press ENTER.

8. Right-click AC_Seat.3 and click Rename.

9. Name the component PASS_SEAT and press ENTER.

Step 12: Assign the Properties to the Components

1. In the Model browser, Component folder, select REAR_SEAT, DRV_SEAT and PASS_SEAT.
The Entity Editor opens.

2. For Property, click Unspecified >> Property.

3. In the Select Property dialog, select _seat_prop and click OK.

4. In the Model browser, Component folder, select BODY_CAVITY. The Entity Editor opens.
5. For Property, click Unspecified >> Property.
6. In the Select Property dialog, select _int_prop and click OK.

Step 13: Review Interface Between Structure and Cavity

1. Click the icon in the Acoustic Cavity toolbar.

2. Select All components.

3. Enter 3 for NORMAL:.

4. Enter 0.5 for INTOL:.

5. Enter 2 for SKNEPS:.

6. Activate the checkbox to Create ACMODL card, in case ACMODL card with the above defined
parameters is to be created.

7. Select the different types to Review interface and click Show to review it.
Step 14: Create MPCs

This step creates additional MPCs between different acoustic and structure components, if needed.

1. Click the icon in the Acoustic Cavity toolbar. The Create MPCs dialog opens.

2. Select the relevant Fluid and Structure components.

3. Set them as Master and Slave.

4. Select Options.
 5. Specify tolerance = 50.

6. Click Create.

Step 15: Renumber the Nodes, Elements, Properties and Materials

1. Click Geometry > Renumber > Nodes to open the Renumber panel.

2. Click nodes >> displayed to select the displayed nodes.

3. Enter 9000000 in the start with field.

4. Click renumber to renumber the nodes.

5. Change the selector to elems.

6. Click elems >> displayed to select the displayed elements.

7. Click renumber to renumber the elements.

8. Change the selector to props.

9. Click props and select BODY_CAVITY and SEAT_CAVITY.

10. Click renumber to renumber the properties.

11. Change the selector to mats.

12. Click mats and select BODY_CAVITY and SEAT_CAVITY.

13. Click renumber to renumber the materials.

14. Click return to exit the panel.

Step 16: Export the Model

1. Click File > Export > Solver Deck. The Export tab opens.

2. For File type select OptiStruct.

3. For Template select Standard format.

4. Browse to a location in the File field and enter acoustic.fem as a name for the model.

5. Expand the Export options.

6. For Export select Displayed from the menu.

7. Activate Write HM comments.

8. Click Export to export the model.
NVH-1100: NVH Director Assembly

The Assembly browser is an object oriented modeling environment where the fundamental entity is
the module entity. A module is an Altair HyperMesh entity used to represent subsystems of an
assembly.

Step 1: Start NVH

1. Click the icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. Click Engineering Solutions > NVH from the User Profiles dialog.
3. Click OK. A file save warning message displays informing you that the complete assembly
database can only be saved in the XML format, as shown in step four of this tutorial.

Step 2: Define Assembly Hierarchy

1. Click View > Assembly Browser.

2. From any view of the Assembly browser, right-click and select Create Module.

3. Enter a module name, and then click OK. Repeat the process to create all root level modules
for the assembly. Expand the assembly by clicking the ‘+’ box next to Module Model.

Step 3: Load an Assembly Definition XML file

1. From any view of the Assembly browser, right-click and select Import XML and Display or
Import XML Only. The XML Import dialog opens.

2. After naming the module, you need to import an .xml file. This should be an assembly database
file that you exported from the NVH Director. Click the icon to navigate to a folder where
the .xml file is located.

3. Select the file and click OK to load the file. The assembly information will be loaded into Altair
HyperWorks.

Step 4: Save an Assembly Definition XML file

1. To save the Assembly definitions in XML files, click the icon.

 Note: The Preserve option saves an assembly XML file along with
a set of nested subassembly files (similar to include files).
The Merge option saves the assembly file with all
subassembly files merged into it.

Subassembly files can be specified by clicking the ‘-‘ icon in the XML file path column.
Navigate to the desired folder and specify a file name. Export of subassembly files can be
controlled by checking/unchecking of the checkbox in the Export column.

Note: The Save XML option is enabled only in the File View to
ensure that you are aware that the subassembly files are
over-written.

Step 5: Define Module Representations

1. Right-click any module and select Edit Representations. This opens the Edit Module tab, and
the Representation sub-tab is shown.
2. Select a module from the drop-down menu marked Module to select a different module. To
create a representation for the selected module, right-click inside the top part of the
Representation tab.

3. Select Add to add a representation.

4. On the newly created representation change the module description, if desired. A default
description is created, which you can edit.

5. After a representation has been added, use the Type field to select an appropriate Type and a file
to be associated with the representation, and click Apply. Two convenient options can be selected
during this step:
• A file assigned to the root representation can optionally be auto-assigned to be a Display
representation (PLOTFE type) simultaneously by checking the Assign file to Display
representation checkbox.
• A representation can be auto-selected to be the Display representation by checking the Set as
Display, load and extract TagPoints checkbox. This will be followed by the file being
imported into the 3D graphics window and TagPoints defined in the file extracted.
6. Aside from file based representations, a templated Lumped Parameter (LP) representation can
also be defined using the LP templates included in the NVH Director, or user created templates.
 7. Select one of the representations to be the active Display or Analysis representation by
checking the appropriate radio buttons.

8. Repeat the process by selecting another module through the drop-down box on the top right side.
9. Once all representations are defined, click the Assembly tab to review the assembly hierarchy
with active Display and Analysis representations.

Step 6: Import Display Representations

1. From the Base View of the Assembly browser, select the root Module Model.

2. Right-click and select Import Display Rep to load the active Display models. Module
representation include files specified as the display representation are loaded here.

Step 7: Manage TagPoints

1. To manage tagpoints, open the TagPoints tab of any module by right-clicking the module in
the Assembly browser and then select Edit TagPoints.

2. To add a tagpoint, right-click inside the tagpoint list box, and select Extract All to extract
tagpoints from the comments added to the 10th field of the grids in the loaded Display model.
 Tagpoints displayed in the 3D graphics area can be customized via the TagPoint Display tool
setting. By default, tagpoints are indicated with a grey sphere along with the label. Other
options are available using the pull-down menu.

3. Repeat the extraction process to complete tagpoint definitions of all modules.

Step 8: Prepare a Module for Assembly

In the previous two steps, you have assumed that the representation file is already in an FE entity ID
range that would not cause conflicts with other modules in the assembly, and all necessary tagpoints

already exist in the file as 10th field comments on the respective grid cards. However, these assumptions

are not met in most practical applications. Necessary preparation work needs to be done to get the
module representation files to a state that is ready for assembly. This section describes how to accomplish

this task.

1. To start the process of preparing a module, right-click the module and select Prepare Module
to enter into the Prepare Module Mode. The abbreviated Module ID Summary dialog opens.

In the Prepare Module Mode the Altair HyperMesh database is first cleared to remove any potentially
conflicting FE entities, and then the root representation file is loaded into Altair HyperMesh. A

module ID summary is then presented with all necessary information needed for you to determine

if the IDs need to be renumbered, and what range they should be renumbered to.

This dialog shown below opens as a part of the Prepare Module action. It is split into two sections.

The bottom section describes the finite element entity ID in the imported FE file. The top section

provides a way to renumber the IDs, if necessary, into a range that is not in conflict with other
modules in the assembly. The Proposed range is what the dialog has identified as one conflict

free range, which can be modified based on options to the right. Action is a user specified operation

to organize IDs into the Proposed range.

Once an appropriate ID management action has been applied, NVH Director enters the Prepare
Module Mode, and a Prepare Module tab opens up in the browser area with sub-tabs designed to

help you perform many functions, such as:

• Add spider: Add spiders to a round hole. Select a type, DOFs and pick center (RBE3 only) and
edge nodes, then click Create.
• Add PLOTEL: Helps you with PLOTEL display elements.
• Edit systems: Relocate or orient the module by modifying the reference local coordinate system.
This option takes you directly to the System panel to edit existing systems.
• Orient and position: Help translate and rotate FE entities. Input values in the appropriate fields.
• Edit materials: Help fill the RHO (Density) and GE (Damping) field of MAT1 cards. Enter a density
and/or damping value in the input box and click All or Select to apply the values to all or selected
material cards.

• Initialize stamping effect: Helps generate stamping effect on sheet metal panel thickness for
FE representation includes.
• Composite Response: Helps define a new response point by relating its motion to existing
tagpoints in the model. The most common example is to define a steering wheel nibble response using t
the steering wheel.
In addition, a number of functionalities on the TagPoints tab of the Edit Module are enabled for you
to manually add tagpoints and assign them to grids in the module. Lock ID’s provide you with a

means to maintain the ID’s of tagpoints without getting renumbered by locking them. This prevents

accidental renumbering of tagpoints. Lock ID’s have a higher preference than the sub ranging utility.

If ID’s are locked for tagpoints, then sub ranging will not renumber those locked ID’s in prepare

module mode. This utility can lock the ID’s of existing tagpoints using edit tagpoints or it can lock

the tag ID while creating it using the create tagpoint utility.

A tagpoint mapping tool is also available in the Prepare Module tab via the icon. The mapping tool
is able to reconcile in bulk the current tagpoint definition in the assembly database with what is in

the root module file. You can also create new tagpoints by reading a .csv file that contains hard point
 coordinate and label information.

2. Once you are finished preparing the module, you can prepare another one from the Assembly

browser, or select to exit the Prepare Module Mode by clicking X on the Prepare Module tab.

You will be prompted with four representation file save options with information on ID renumbering.
Yes: The root representation file is to be saved, in this case, intra and inter ID conflict flag will be set

to Yes. No: The root representation file is not to be saved, in this case, intra and inter ID conflict flag

will be set to No. Cancel: The exit Prepare Module Mode action is aborted. No, but VALIDATE:

In this case there is no change to the file and no need to save the file, but intra and inter ID conflict

flag will be set to yes.

3. Once all of the modules have been prepared, you can review the assembly ID ranges and conflict
setting from the Id View of the Assembly browser.
At the individual module level, the ID tab of the Edit Module will also be populated.
It is also possible to view mass and damping information using the Property View in the Assembly

browser.
Step 9: Define Connections Between Modules

1. Click the icon to launch the connection Interactive Create tool.

2. Connections can be created between modules to be connected either by selecting tagpoints from the

list box in the dialog, or by picking tagpoints. Hint: Pick and drag on the left hand side of the tags to

ease selection off the screen after clicking the icon. You can also provide a description for the

connector created, specify an owning module, a local coordinate system, connector location for the center

of motion, and a collector for the connector created. Force ID's for connectors gives you an option to

define the numbering pattern to a connector, so that the connection elements created by realization of
those connectors fall in the defined numbering pattern. ID's are forced to connector elements and

properties after realizing them.

3. Connections can also be created using the Auto Create tool, which can be invoked by clicking the

icon. Two automated creation approaches are available: auto creation by Proximity or by Tagpoint

Matching.

4. To review the connections that were created, click View > Connector Browser.
The Connector browser is divided into two browser panes. The top pane is the Module Pane,
where connected modules are listed. You can view connections attaching to modules using typical

browser functions, such as Show/Hide/Isolate.

The lower pane is the Connector Pane, where individual connections are listed.

The following connection views are available from the Connector Pane.

• Connectivity View : Columns in this view focus on connectivity related details. Of particular
importance are the following columns:

PointA/PointB: These two columns show the two tagpoints on two modules that are being

connected for each connection. The same order (PointA first and PointB second) is used when

generating connection FE entities during connector realization. PointA/PointB may be shown with
two incomplete status indications (in square brackets): [N/A] indicates that the tagpoint exists

in the assembly database, but is not available in the Altair HyperMesh session (not imported.)
[Undefined] indicates that the tagpoint does not exist in the current assembly database, which

means the tagpoint is either deleted or the sub .xml file it travels with is not imported in the session.

Owning module: This column indicates which module owns the particular connection. The owning

module is always the module on the PointA side of the connection. The connection definition and
properties always travel with or organized under their owning modules when sub .xml files are written.

Distance: This column shows the distance between PointA and PointB. It can be used as a metric for

checking the validity of the connection. Connections spanning large distances are potentially

connected by mistake. Some NVH engineers prefer to keep all connections at zero length due to
fear that non-zero length springs may introduce unintended dynamic motion, which is a valid concern

if celas type spring elements are used during connector realization. When cbush type spring and rbe2

type rigid elements are used, this is the case for all current NVH Director supported realization types,
correct dynamic motion is ensured by element formulation, and there is no longer a need to maintain

zero connection length.

Switch nodes: This column shows if there is a need to switch the order by which PointA and
PointB are used in generating rbe2 rigid elements during connector realization. This need is driven

solely by dependency considerations of the connected points, since a point that is already dependent

cannot be made the dependent point again in the connection element definition. Four possible states

of this column are possible. No: If PointA is independent, regardless of the dependency of PointB.
Yes: If PointA is dependent, but PointB is independent, in which case PointB will be made the

independent point in realizations involving rbe2. Unresolvable: This happens when both

PointA and PointB are already dependent, in which case a realization involving rbe2 is not possible,

and the connection will fail to realize. Unknown: If PointA’s dependency status is unknown or if

PointA is dependent and PointB’s dependency status is unknown.

Forced ID: Force ID's for connectors gives you an option to define the numbering pattern to a
connector, so that the connection elements created by realization of those connectors fall in the

defined numbering pattern.

• Property View : Columns in this view focus on connection property types defined, local
coordinate systems used and property set that is active.

• Location View : Columns in this view focus on the location definition.

 5. To review unattached modules, go to the Assembly browser and select Find Unattached Modules.

This action removes all modules attached by connections and provides a good way check if all

components shown in the 3D graphics window are intentionally unattached.

6. Similarly, select Find Unattached TagPoints to see if some TagPoints are unattached by accident.

Step 10: Define Connection Information and Properties

1. Connection properties can be defined by first selecting a connector, right-click, and select
Edit Connection. This opens the General tab of the Connection Manager, where you can edit the

connector’s general information including Name, Description and Owning module.

2. Click Update to save the changes. A connection location type can be defined by selecting one of the

options from the pull-down menu: Point A, Point B, Midpoint, or a CustomLocation. When

CustomLocation is selected, the location can be defined either by specifying a specific coordinate,

or by mapping it to a Hardpoint location.

3. Click Update to save the changes.

Information related to Connected Points, and distance between them, is displayed in the next

section. You can modify any connecting tagpoint by clicking the icon next to its label, which opens

the Tagpoint Selection tool. You can then select a module first in the Module pull-down list, select a

tagpoint owned by the module, or click the icon and pick a tagpoing on the screen in the

3D graphics window, and then click Select. The tagpoint list can be further filtered by clicking

the icon and selecting one of the tagpoint types: Response, Connection, Input, Plot, or
All (default).
When checked, the Switch Nodes checkbox allows you to change the independent node from

Point A to Point B, based on their dependency status, to avoid an already dependent node being
specified as dependent again when the connection is realized into new rigid elements. Connection

properties are defined in the States tab of the Connection Manager.

The first step in defining connection properties is to select a State Set. State Set is designed to
capture a unique hardware part with its own set of connection properties. For example, hydromount

vs. a base rubber part. By default, a base State Set is already created and assigned to the connector.

Therefore, unless there is a need for multiple sets of properties, the default base State Set selection
 does not need to be changed.

4. To select another State Set click the Edit button. This opens the Select State Set dialog.

State Sets can be added by clicking the icon, or deleted by clicking the icon. You can double-

click a State Set to edit its name, and click Select to finalize the selection.

The second step in defining connection properties is to select a LCS (local coordinate system) for

the properties to be defined in the next step.

As seen in the screenshot above, four options are available in specifying coordinate systems used

by any element generated during connection realization:

• Vehicle – ‘0’ or the basic coordinate system is used.

• Owned – This option allows you to create a custom LCS by clicking Edit.
• TagPointA – Local coordinate system specified as the output Displacement Coordinate System on
the grid card associated when TagPointA is used.
• TagPointB – Local coordinate system specified as the output Displacement Coordinate System on
the grid card associated when TagPointB is used.
When the Owned local coordinate system is selected, a local coordinate system managed in the
assembly can be created using the Define Local Coordinate System dialog. Three types of

coordinate systems can be defined:

• Axis-Plane – Two vectors are required to define this system. A vector can either be specified in
direction cosines, or by selecting two tagpoints.
• Angle – Any combinations of angle rotations around the reference axes can be used to define
this system.
• Ujoint – The Ujoint coordinate systems is defined by selecting two tagpoints on the input shaft
and two tagpoints on the output shaft. A homo-kenetic coordinate system will then be created to
properly describe motion transfer of Ujoints from the input to the output shafts.

The last step in defining connection properties is to define property states.

As seen in the screenshot above, five options are available in specifying property states:

• PBUSH – A CBUSH element is generated during connection realization. The PBUSH card allows
you to specify K (stiffness), B (viscous damping), GE (material damping), M (mass and moment of
Inertia), and RIGID (checkboxes for rigidly connected dofs.) Note: The M and RIGID fields are not
supported in the Nastran profile, and are ignored.
• RIGID – A RBE2 element with dofs specified in checked boxes is generated during connection
realization.
• PBUSHT – A CBUSH element is generated during connection realization. In addition to the PBUSH
card that specifies the base properties, a PBUSHT card allows you to specify frequency tables for K,
B, and GE.
• PBUSH-MASS – A CBUSH element with two COMN2 elements at its Point A and Point B are
 generated during connection realization. Note: This type is designed to be used in the Nastran profile
where the M fields for PBUSH are not supported by the Nastran solver.
• PBUSH-RIGID – A CBUSH element with a parallel RBE2 element are generated during
connection realization. Note: This type is designed to be used in the Nastran profile where the
RIGID checkboxes for PBUSH are not supported by the Nastran solver.
5. Click Apply to save each property state definition. Property states can also be imported using the

Import From File option by clicking the icon. The Import States dialog opens.

6. Browse and select a connection property template file, select a connection property set, and click

Import to load the property states.

7. Repeat the above process for all connections to complete property definition.

Step 11: Manage Analysis

An Analysis is a collection of module, connection and loadcase selections that completely specifies
the assembly definition for a particular simulation event. The Analysis Manager is invoked by
clicking the icon.

1. To add an analysis by extracting active module and connection settings, click the icon. To
add an analysis by copying module and connection settings from the selected analysis, click
the icon. To add a blank analysis, click the icon.

The top section of the Analysis Manager is used to define analysis, which is further divided into
parts. The first part is for module representation and state selection, the second is for
connection state selection and the third part is for loadcase definition.

2. To define module representations, select the representation via the list individually, or globally
all representations by type via the right-click context menu.

3. To define connection state, pick a State label.

4. To define template load case, click the ‘…’ icon to invoke the Select Loadcase Definition dialog.

5. Highlight an existing definition or add a new one by clicking the icon.

The lower section of the Analysis Manager is used to apply the module representation and state
selections to the modules in the assembly, realize connections to states defined into
corresponding FE entities and render the defined loadcase into solver cards. Once an analysis
has been applied, the Job options section is enabled.
6. If the Create job option is selected, you can select a Job folder and click Create Job, which
opens the Job Submission dialog, allowing you to select a number of solver related options.
You can select the server, local or HWUL for solving the runs. Clicking Submit Job creates the
 analysis job and submits it to the target solver for analysis. Subsequently, the job will be
accessible through the Job Manager.
7. If the Export deck option is selected, click Export to save a solver deck for manual submission
to the targeted solver for analysis. All analysis information is saved in the assembly .xml file
and retrieved when the file is loaded back.
.