The main purpose of this tutorial is to use Workbench to set up a 1-Way coupled DEM-FEA simulation between Rocky and Ansys Transient Structural - Mechanical.

The scenario considered in this tutorial is evaluating the structural integrity of a transfer chute given varying feeder belt speeds.

You will learn how to:

And you will use these programs:

To complete this tutorial, you are required to have on a Windows machine, both of the following:

The geometries in this tutorial include the following components:

To begin setting up the project, do the following:

While performing the steps in the table above, note the following:

Now that the Workbench project is set up, let's define the Rocky project settings.

Since a coupled simulation with Ansys Mechanical will be carried out for this geometry part, it is important to refine the mesh so that the pressure field transferred to Mechanical has an adequate resolution for the desired structural analysis.

Every triangle node will provide x, y, z pressure components, which will then be applied as a load inside Mechanical.

To visualize and refine the mesh, do the following:

Creating this input variable will expose it as a parameter in Workbench, which we will make use of in Part B.

Verify the new input variable as follows:

You may change the Value to see how this influences the Feed Conveyor geometry. However, for the purposes of this tutorial, please keep the value as 3.0 m/s.

Now that our feed conveyor is set up, we can create the receiving conveyor.

For this tutorial, the default Materials and Materials Interactions settings will be used without changes.

Next we will add a rock-shaped polyhedron particle set in multiple sizes that will be injected through a Particle Inlet.

For this Tutorial, transient loads on only the chute geometry will be exported to Ansys Transient Structural - Mechanical.

With a 3D View window opened, your Data panel and Workspace should look similar to the below image.

The Simulation Summary screen appears (as shown), then processing begins.

One analysis you can do after the simulation is done processing is to quantify the force of the particles as they collide with the Transfer Chute. By plotting the Force : Z, we can visualize this quantity over time.

Later in Part B of this tutorial, we will use the Force : Z of the chute geometry to help determine whether modifications made during parameterization are improving the design.

We will expose this parameter to Workbench by making it available on the Output tab of the Expressions/Variables panel.

Note that we have set the time range for the force output to start a few seconds into the simulation. This is to account for the time it takes for the particle flow to reach the chute.

Once processing is complete, do the following:

This completes Part A of this tutorial, in which through Ansys Workbench Rocky was used to set up and process a Transfer Chute simulation that will later be 1-Way coupled with Ansys Transient Structural - Mechanical.

During this tutorial, it was possible to:

What's Next? If you completed this part successfully, then you are ready to move on to Part B and set up and run the FEA simulation based upon these DEM results.

The main purposes of this tutorial are to use Ansys Workbench to run a 1-Way coupled DEM-FEA simulation using Rocky and Ansys Transient Structural - Mechanical, and then analyze those results.

You will learn how to:

And you will use these programs:

To complete this tutorial, you are required to have in a Windows machine, both of the following:

With the project open in Workbench, you are now ready to begin Part B.

Before we set up the Mechanical project, we need to update the results.

The FEA simulation starts processing.

When the simulation concludes, the effects caused by the particles colliding with the chute surfaces can be easily seen:

It is possible to analyze variables in relation to others if we parameterize them.

Save the project, close Mechanical, and return to Workbench.

The last part of this tutorial is to make use of Workbench's Design Points feature.

In the Outline of All Parameters window, both the input and output parameters we defined earlier in this tutorial are listed. Specifically:

These parameters can be directly changed to compare different scenarios, in order to provide you information on how to improve the chute design for the bulk material flow.

For example, you can also change and compare:

Now that we have analyzed the structural load on the original chute design, let's see how the results change when we change the input values.

Let's analyze what happens to the chute when we change the Feed Conveyor's BeltSpeed.

We will do this in the Table of Design Points by adding two new Design Points (DPs) and changing the input parameters.

The new DPs will be run in both Rocky and Mechanical, and the resulting output parameters will be shown in this table for analysis.

Each DP is run sequentially as the previous is finished.

For each DP, Workbench will save the files (setup and results) if the Retain checkbox is enabled. If not, it will delete the results as soon as the simulation is done and the output parameters were obtained.

This is useful when you run several cases and are in danger of running out of space. You can then re-run only the best scenario cases (or the worst in case you want to identify failure scenarios).

After the new DPs have been updated, we can look at the resulting output parameters and can see that the results match what we might have expected:

This completes Part B of this tutorial, in which through Ansys Workbench / Ansys Transient Structural - Mechanical was used to set up and run a FEA simulation using the particle forces calculated previously by Rocky.

During this tutorial, it was possible to:

What's Next? If you completed this part successfully, then you are ready to move on to the next tutorial.