Workbench Material Data Transfer
A link can now be created from an Ansys Electromagnetics Desktop project (HFSS, Maxwell, etc.) geometry cell to a downstream Engineering Data (ED) cell. When the downstream ED cell is refreshed, it will be updated with materials data (names and properties defined in the upstream project) that are used by the upstream project. This ensures that the geometry-to-geometry link connecting the same two systems, which specifies the material assignments for various parts, refers to the correct materials and their properties.
Detailed Behavior
The geometry-to-ED link can be created, for example, by dragging the Ansys Electromagnetics Desktop project geometry cell to the ED cell of a downstream system. When the downstream system's ED cell is refreshed, the upstream system generates a MathML formatted XML file which is used by Workbench to update the downstream system. This file is stored in the workbench project files according to design point. Note that Workbench ED cell material names are case-sensitive, as are material names within the Ansys Electromagnetics Desktop designs.
For the material assignments to work with the ED in the downstream model, the downstream geometry cell must have the Material Properties checkbox selected/checked. A convenient way to do this is to have this property checked by default, by setting it in Tools > Options > Geometry Import. Designs created after this default option is set will have Material Properties checked automatically for the geometry cell.
When the downstream model cell is refreshed or updated, the material properties from the ED in the same system are used in the model's materials, based on the material assignments set during the geometry cell refresh. Note that if material assignment fails, the Workbench default material Structural Steel will be used.
Workbench resolves name conflicts by changing the name of any materials being transferred over from the upstream system. For example, if the upstream Ansys Electromagnetics Desktop design uses a material named “Structural Steel”, this will conflict with the existing downstream default material with the same name. The update will result in the Ansys Electromagnetics Desktop material being named “Structural Steel 2", which will silently break the material assignment, because the resulting model will refer to "Structural Steel" as it originally did, and use the default workbench property values, instead of using the properties which were supplied by Ansys Electromagnetics Desktop. If this occurs, rename the material in the Ansys Electromagnetics Desktop project (in such a way that there is no more conflict), reset the downstream ED cell, reset the downstream geometry cell, and then refresh those cells in the downstream system.
Note that some materials may not satisfy all of the requirements for the downstream system physics. For example, vacuum has no thermal conduction coefficient, but downstream steady state thermal systems require a non-zero value for this property. Material properties in the Workbench ED cell of the downstream system can be edited/modified after the refresh to ensure that validity criteria can be met. Any property added to a material in the downstream ED will be preserved in subsequent ED cell updates. However, any existing property (i.e., a property that was given by the upstream system material definition) that is edited in the downstream ED will be overwritten by a subsequent ED cell update.
Related Topics
Ansys Electromagnetics CAD Integration Through Workbench