Electric machines and generators, solenoid actuators and cyclotrons are just a few examples of numerous electromagnetic devices that exhibit circular symmetrical periodic type of symmetry.
An automated periodic symmetry analysis conserves time and CPU resources and delivers analysis results that correspond to the entire structure.
The overall procedure in Ansys Workbench for simulating structures that are periodically symmetric is to run a magnetostatic analysis and perform the following specialized steps:
Insert a Periodic Region symmetry object in the tree. This step is necessary to enable Ansys Workbench to perform a periodic symmetry analysis.
Define the low and high boundaries of the Periodic Region by selecting the appropriate faces in the Low Boundary and High Boundary fields.
Define type of symmetry as Periodic or Anti-Periodic (see Periodicity Example).
The solver will automatically take into account defined periodicity, and reported results will correspond to the full symmetry model (except volumetric type results as Force Summation, Energy probe, and so on).
Note: For a magnetic field simulation with periodic regions, you must be careful when applying flux parallel boundary conditions to adjacent faces. If the adjacent faces of the periodic faces build up a ring and all are subject to flux parallel conditions, that implies a total flux of zero through the periodic face. In some applications that is not a physically correct requirement. One solution is to extend the periodic sector to include the symmetry axis.
See the Periodicity Example section for further details.