Smart Meshing for Mechanical Simulations of Large Li...

© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 27, 2014 1

Smart Meshing for Mechanical Simulations of Large Li-Ion Battery Assemblies


• Objective • Challenges in Battery Assembly Meshing • ANSYS Advantages • Smart Meshing Process • Assembly statistics • Best practices to follow

Outline


To create a smart process to generate mesh on large assemblies of Automotive Li – Ion Batteries, flexible enough to address,

• Incorporating design changes • Reduce CAD to Mesh time significantly • Allow satellite meshing process

Objective


Challenges in Battery Assembly Meshing • Retaining geometry quality as good as CAD software

• Difficulty in maneuvering large assemblies for geometry simplification

• Efficiently cleaning up of CAD file for meshing

• Defining common mesh parameters to address various simulation goals

• Meshing complete assembly in one go

• Connecting components efficiently

• Total effort required for meshing

• Possibility of Human errors


ANSYS Advantages • Retaining geometry quality as good as CAD software • Bi-directional CAD connectivity reduces data loss and increases import speed

• Difficulty in maneuvering large assemblies for geometry simplification

• Efficiently cleaning up of CAD file for meshing

• Defining common mesh parameters to address various simulation goals

• Meshing complete assembly in one go

• Connecting components efficiently

• Total effort required for meshing

• Human error are possible

• Efficient (B-rep) representation of CAD reduces graphics requirement

• DesignModeler has features to clean up, repair and simplify geometries

• Advance meshing technologies and range of element types helps in creating common mesh parameters for different simulation goals

• ACT based Assembly Manager Tool helps to tackle geometry at subassembly level

• Auto contacts/joints generation reduces time for interface definition

• Smart meshing process reduces CAD to Meshing time significantly.

• Usage of assembly manager tool, auto contact definition and worksheet based meshing reduces human error


1. Geometry Introduction

2. How smart process will work?

3. How Smart Assembling process will work?

4. How Assembly Manager ACT tool works?

5. Steps in Assembling using ACT tool

Smart Meshing Process


• The new reduced assembly will look like this. It’s manageable . Isn’t it?

• It has > 2000 bodies inside the Battery Assembly

• The Subassemblies have many identical components. We could reduce the model to exploit this similarity.

Geometry Introduction

• Import Battery assembly in WorkBench from UG


How Smart process will work?

Create more manageable subassemblies

Single stack 16 stack module

23 stack module

Base Connectors

Reduced battery assembly

Mesh all subassemblies individually


Single stack

16 & 23 stack

Base connector assembly

Single stack

16 & 23 stack

How Smart Assembling process will work?

Single stack

16 & 23 stack module

Add Single stack modules to 16 stack & 23 stack module frame

Add 16 stack & 23 stack modules to Base connector assembly to create complete Battery mesh

It’s simple Isn’t it?


How Assembly Manager ACT tool works?

Base Model Assembly Imported Part

Assembly Manager capability is exposed in ANSYS Workbench Mechanical only via an ACT extension


Steps in Assembling using ACT tool..

Base Model

Select the Part to Import and its location

Assembly

Control data to Import

1. Export support frame from base module 2. Import support frame at new location 3. Select data to be imported 4. New assembly is ready !!


Assembly statistics

• > 2000 bodies

• Nodes- ~ 4.7 M, Element - ~ 14 M

• Contacts: > 8000 contacts and > 100 joints

• Name selections: > 800 name selections

• Materials: 7 different material properties

• 48GB RAM machine used for assembly mesh generation

• Depending upon analysis type, total number of equations for solver will be > 15M.

• Elapsed time from CAD to assembly meshing is 2-3 weeks using Smart assembly process


Best Practices • It is recommended to create subassemblies after importing CAD assembly

in workbench, rather than in CAD software

• Remove geometry interferences between different subassemblies at Assembly level before writing subassembly projects

• Perform geometry cleanup, repair and simplification at subassembly level

• It is recommended to use “Named Selection” rather than “Geometry Selection” to define contact, meshing, loading etc...

• Ensure “Named Selections” are defined for surfaces which will connect with other subassembly

• It is recommended to decide the element type, size and method suitable for different type of simulation ( structural, explicit etc..)

• It is recommended to use worksheet based meshing process

• Master Material library should be available in Assembly project

• Recommended to perform modal analysis of sub-assembly before adding to Assembly to confirm properly constrained model.


Point of contacts..

• [email protected] - Mechanical Analysis Coordinator

• [email protected] - Geometry and Meshing Processes

• [email protected] - ACT Assembly Manager tool

• [email protected] - Regional Technical Manager

• [email protected] - Regional Support Contact

• [email protected] - Director Automotive Marketing

• [email protected] - Battery TOPS Coordinator

Smart Meshing for Mechanical Simulations of Large Li...

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