Mechanical Getting Started Guides

The following guides are tutorials covering the three solution types available in Mechanical designs (Modal, Thermal, and Structural). These Getting Started guides walk you through the steps to build or import the geometry; apply materials, boundaries, and excitations; set up the solution; run the analysis; and evaluate the results (by generating tables, plots, overlays, and animations):

Modal Solution – Coil

This Getting Started guide describes how to set up and solve a natural frequency (modal) analysis of a copper coil.

By following the steps in this guide, you will learn how to perform the following modal analysis tasks in Ansys Electronics Desktop:

Insert a Mechanical design and choose the Modal solution type
Set 3D UI options and choose the model units
Import a CAD solid model
Assign the material
Apply fixed support boundaries
Apply length based mesh refinement
Set up, validate, and analyze the model
Create a mesh overlay
Create tables showing modal frequencies, effective mass ratios, and the sum of the effective mass ratios for all translational and rotational directions
Overlay the displacement magnitude results
Animate the displacement overlay and review the mode shapes

Steady-State Thermal Solution – Heat Sink

This Getting Started guide describes how to set up and solve a steady-state thermal analysis of a transistor and heat sink model based on a heat generation excitation and convection boundaries. A thin electrical insulator is used between the transistor and heat sink, and you will define thermal contact resistance between the parts.

By following the steps in this guide, you will learn how to perform the following thermal analysis tasks in Ansys Electronics Desktop:

Set general options
Insert a mechanical design and choose the thermal solution type
Set 3D UI options and choose the model units
Import a CAD solid model
Group the transistor components (body, die, and tab)
Specify the materials
Imprint the insulator on the heat sink
Assign contact to the front and back insulator faces (to account for thermal resistance)
Assign a convection boundary
Define the ambient temperature
Assign a heat generation excitation
Assign length-based mesh refinement
Draw a series of polyline segments that will be used as a basis of plotting temperature results
Set up, validate, and solve the thermal analysis
Create a mesh overlay
Create a plot of the temperature versus the distance along the previously drawn polyline
Create a temperature magnitude overlay
Create a heat flux vector overlay
Create a fields summary of the heat flow rate of the convection boundaries

Transient Thermal Solution – Power Resistor

In this Getting Started guide, you will learn how to set up and solve a Transient Thermal analysis of a Mechanical design in the Ansys Electronics Desktop application. You will learn how to use datasets to define time-varying parameters. Specifically, you will use datasets in piecewise constant (pwc) functions to vary heat generation, convection film coeffieient, and the rate at which field results are saved.

The focus is on transient thermal analysis and not solid modeling. Therefore, an Ansys Electronics Desktop project file has been provided as the starting point for the exercise.

By following the procedures in this guide, you will learn how to perform the following tasks:

Open the source project and save it to working folder
Set 3D UI options (this guide is based on the current view orientation scheme introduced in version 2024 R1, not the legacy orientations of 2023 R2 and earlier versions)
Modify the material properties (to reduce the transient event duration and solution time, you will decrease the specific heat of all materials by an order of magnitude)
Assign convection boundaries and define a dataset to vary one of the boundaries with time
Assign a heat generation excitation, including a dataset to vary it over time
Define the ambient temperature
Draw two points and assign each of them as a thermal monitor point
Assign initial temperatures to selected objects
Set up the solution, including a dataset to control the rate at which field results are saved
Validate and solve the transient thermal analysis, monitoring the thermal results as the solution progresses
Create and animate a temperature overlay
Create a fields summary of the heat flow rate of the heat generation excitation and convection boundaries

Structural Solution – Power Resistor

This Getting Started guide describes how to construct, set up, and solve two designs with an identical power resistor:

An Icepak design (specifically, a steady-state thermal analysis) in which the resistor body is a heat source, air movement removes heat, and a fixed temperature is assigned to the face of the solder joints (where they would contact a circuit board trace).
A Mechanical – Structural design which imports the temperature results from the Icepak design and determines the resultant thermal stresses and displacements.

By following the steps in this guide, you will learn how to perform the following thermal analysis tasks in Ansys Electronics Desktop:

Insert an Icepak and a Mechanical design
Choose the Structural solution type for the Mechanical design
Set 3D UI options and choose the model units
Create the power resistor geometry in Mechanical
Specify component names, materials, and colors
Copy geometry to Icepak
Adjust the air region size in Icepak
Add a void to the air region in Icepak
Assign flow openings in Icepak
Assign thermal sources in Icepak
Solve the Icepak analysis and review the temperature results
Assign fixed supports in Mechanical
Assign a non-uniform thermal condition in Mechanical, linking to the Icepak results
Add mesh refinement in Mechanical
Solve the Mechanical – Structural analysis
Compare imported temperatures in Mechanical to Icepak temperature results
Create and animate a displacement magnitude overlay
Create an equivalent stress overlay in Mechanical
Define a clipping plane to see the internal stresses