Bolt Modeling Wizard in ANSYS

Sriram Venkateswaran TATA Consultancy Services, Chennai, India Dr. Kannan Sundararajan TATA Consultancy Services, Chennai, India Abstract
A Bolt Modeling Wizard, similar to the Contact Wizard, was developed to facilitate modeling of bolts. Ansys Parametric Design Language (APDL) scripts were used to model and mesh the bolts and Tcl/Tk was used to design a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI). User Interface Design Language (UIDL) was used to interface this wizard with the "Preprocessor" menu of Ansys. The current version of this wizard models i) solid bolts with pretension, ii) bolts with BEAM4 for shank and rigid beams for head and nut iii) bolts with BEAM4 for shank and RBE3 command for head and nut and iv) bolts with BEAM4 for shank and shells for head and nut. Multiple generation of a solid bolt is implemented in this wizard. Solid bolts with pretension can be replicated in the cartesian and cylindrical coordinate systems. Six-sigma methodology was used to implement this wizard and the process capability with and without using the wizard was measured.

Introduction
In most of the engineering applications involving assemblies, bolts are used to connect the components together. Bolts play a key role in satisfying the functional requirements of the general assembly. Hence a finite element analyst frequently finds himself in a situation in which he has to model a bolt. Traditionally many methods are employed to model bolts. We have methods in which bolt shank is modeled with beam (or link) elements, and stiff beams (spiders) or shell elements (with appropriate real constants) used for the bolt head. RBE3 element is also used to model the bolt head regions with beams (or links) for bolt shank. The latest technique is to use the pretension element that was specifically developed for bolt modeling. The main advantage of using pretension elements is that one need not go through the iterative process of getting the strain values right, which is essential with beams (or links). Whatever the method used, the process of modeling a bolt is both time-consuming and cumbersome. This becomes even more difficult if we need to model a large number of bolts. Our experience in handling complex models is that as the number of bolt increases, with different real constant and material sets, it becomes more and more difficult and error-prone to get the modeling right. The time and effort involved is enormous in the conceptual stages of design where the baseline model goes through several revisions, which needs to be analyzed individually for arriving at an optimized design. This coupled with the fact that the turnaround time for the whole exercise is always under severe pressure, were the motivating factors to come up with a wizard for modeling bolts.

Methodology
Objective
Our objective is to create a bolt modeling wizard that would guide the user prompting the necessary inputs that are needed for various types of bolt modeling through a user friendly GUI.

Scope
The following are identified as critical-to-quality (CTQs) in achieving our objective: What are the types of modeling techniques that will be addressed through the wizard?

What parameters should be input to the wizard? What are the derived parameters that the wizard should calculate based on the input? In what ways can the wizard facilitate periodic generation of bolts? Keeping the above-mentioned CTQs in mind, the scope is defined as follows: 1. 2. 3. Four common types of bolt modeling shall be considered viz. solid bolt with pretension, bolts with spider beams, bolts using RBE3 command and bolts with shell elements. The wizard should cater to bolt positioning, material and real constant assignments, in addition to the modeling itself. The wizard must be capable of generating multiple copies of bolts in linear (Cartesian system) and circumferential directions (Cylindrical system) for solid bolts.

Procedure
The wizard is developed using APDL scripts with Tcl/Tk for the GUI. After successful completion, the wizard was interfaced with Ansys menus under "Preprocessor>Create" with the title "Bolt Wizard" using UIDL as shown in Figure 1. The user starts off by clicking the "Bolt Wizard" button that brings up the main menu of the Bolt Wizard program, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1. Customized Ansys Menu

Figure 2. Bolt Wizard Main Menu

The Main Menu prompts the user to select the type of bolt to be modeled. The "Solid Bolt" option models a solid bolt with pretension, "Bolt with spiders" option models the bolt shank as a beam and the head and nut with spiders of beam elements with large stiffness, "Bolt with RBE3 command" models the bolt shank with beam elements and uses RBE3 elements to represent the head and nut. Finally "Bolt with shell" option uses beam elements for the shank and shell elements with thickness for the bolt head and nut. The user can click the "Apply" button to proceed further and "Exit" button to exit the Wizard. Clicking the "Help" button pops up an HTML file, which describes the function of the menu.

Modeling Solid Bolt

For modeling solid bolts the radio button "Solid Bolt" has to be chosen as shown in Figure 3. The user is prompted for the various solid bolt parameters as shown in Figure 4. Most of the parameters are selfexplanatory. Keypoints 1, 2 and 3 are used to define a plane to position and orient the bolt. Keypoints 1 and 2 are used to determine the bolt center while Keypoint 3, along the bolt hole, is to define the direction of the bolt shank as shown in Figure 5. Clicking the "Ok" button destroys the current menu and either starts the modeling or pops up the "Copy Bolt" menu as shown in Figure 6. The "Copy Bolt" menu pops up if the "Number of bolt(s)" entered is greater than one. "Apply" button does the same without destroying the current menu. "Cancel" button stops the whole operation and goes back to the main menu.

Figure 3. Bolt Wizard Main Menu

Figure 4. Solid Bolt Menu

Bolt center Keypoint 1 Keypoint 2

Keypoint 3

Figure 5. Illustration of the use of three keypoints for bolt positioning and orientation If more than one solid bolt with the same pretension and physical dimensions are required, then the user has to input the number of bolts including the original. This will bring up the "Copy Bolt" menu that defines the offset values to be used for multiple bolt generation as shown in Figure 6. Note that circumferential generation of bolts can also be accomplished by first defining a suitable cylindrical coordinate system and specifying the coordinate system number in the input. The angle between bolts should be input in degrees. Pretension section numbers increase from the given number according to the number of bolts. Each section is meshed separately and the given preload is applied to each of the "K nodes. This menu works in the same way as the "Preprocessor>Copy" option in Ansys.

Figure 6. Copy menu to facilitate multiple bolt generation The parameters entered are passed to an APDL script, which models and meshes the bolt, applies the pretension elements and assigns the material properties. Help brings up a detailed help on each of the parameters through an HTML file as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7. HTML help file for solid bolt

Practically, it is always possible to enter incorrect dimensions for the bolt, especially when handling large number of bolts. To rectify this, a verify dialog box, Figure 8, was also introduced. Responding with a "No" will undo the whole operation and gets back to the original step before bolt generation.

Figure 8. Verify dialog box Figures 9 and 10 illustrate bolt replication in linear and circumferential direction respectively.

Figure 9. Bolt replication in linear direction

Figure 10. Bolt replication in circumferential direction

Modeling bolts with spiders

For modeling bolts with spiders, the "Bolt with spiders" option has to be chosen from the main menu (Figure 12). The user is prompted with the menu shown in Figure 13, that accepts the parameters for this option. The input shank diameter is assigned to the real constant for bolt. The head and nut height is used to determine the length of the beam (shank). The beam length is typically taken as the sum of thickness of the flanges plus (head height + nut height)/2 as shown in Figure 11. The bolt element type and material property for the shank should be defined beforehand. The specified real constant number is used to create real constant for the bolt. Similarly element type number, material number and real constant number should be input for the spiders. A large value of Young's modulus is automatically assigned to the spider beams. Youngs modulus and preload are used to calculate the initial strain. The calculated strain value is assigned as real constant to the beam automatically. Keypoints are used to position the beam as before. Head height

Head height/2

Nut height/2

Figure 11. Modeling bolt with spider beams Nut height

Figure 12. Bolt Wizard Main Menu

Figure 13. Bolt with spiders menu

In order to facilitate the modeling of the bolt head and nut by stiff beams, two nodal components should be defined. These nodal components define the interface between the bolt head and the flange and the nut and the flange respectively. The copy option is not available in this version. An "Undo" option is provided with the dialog box shown in Figure 9. Responding with a No will undo the whole operation. The parameters entered in the menu are passed to an APDL script, which models and meshes the bolt and assigns the

material properties and real constants. A "Help" button pulls up an HTML file that gives instructions on how to use the menu.

Modeling bolts with RBE3 elements

Modeling bolts with RBE3 command is very similar to modeling bolt with spider beams. Instead of the nodal components being used to generate spiders of stiff beams, RBE3 command is used to create constraint equations. For modeling bolts with RBE3 elements, "Bolt with RBE3 command" option has to be chosen as shown in Figure 14. The user is prompted with a menu as shown in Figure 15 that accepts the required parameters.

Figure 14. Bolt Wizard Main Menu

Figure 15. Bolt with RBE3 menu

Names of components of nodes at the head and nut are passed as before and three keypoints are used to locate and orient the bolt. Initial strain is calculated based on the Youngs modulus and preload and automatically assigned as real constant to the beam. The Copy option is not available in the present version. An "Undo" option is provided with the dialog box shown in Figure 9. Responding with a No will undo the whole operation. The parameters entered in the menu are passed to the APDL script, which models and meshes the bolt and assigns the material properties and real constants. A "Help" button pulls up an HTML file that gives instructions on how to use the menu.

Modeling bolts with shell elements

In this type of modeling, beams are used to model the shank and shell elements are used to simulate the head and nut. For modeling bolts with shell elements, "Bolt with shell" option has to be chosen as shown in Figure 16. The user is prompted with a menu as shown in Figure 17 that accepts the required parameters.

Figure 16. Bolt Wizard Main Menu

Figure 17. Bolt with shells menu

This menu is similar to the menu used to model with spiders but requires information for the shell elements instead of spider beams. Unlike modeling bolt with spiders, the shank length is taken as the sum of the thickness of the flanges. Thickness of the bolt head and nut is passed as real constant to the shell elements. The pretension load here is used to calculate the initial strain. Keypoints are used to position and orient the bolt as before. A Copy option for multiple bolt generation is not available in the present version. An "Undo" option is provided with the dialog box as shown in Figure 9. Responding with a No will undo the whole operation. The parameters entered in the menu are passed to the APDL script, which models and meshes the bolt and assigns the material properties and real constants. A "Help" button pulls up an HTML file that gives instructions on how to use the menu.

Verification and validation

The wizard was verified successfully for different types of bolt modeling. Verification was carried out with various input parameters. Upon successful completion of the testing, the wizard was released for general use.

A note on process improvement

In order to quantify the effectiveness of this wizard, the process capability of the modeling process for each type of bolt was measured with and without the use of the wizard. This showed a significant reduction in modeling time and rework with the use of the wizard, as reflected in the z-values (Appendix A). The payoff due to the use of this wizard increases even more if used to model multiple bolts.

Conclusion
A Bolt Modeling Wizard was developed, using Tcl/Tk and APDL. This wizard is interfaced with Ansys using UIDL. Features of this wizard include four different types of bolt simulation, viz. Solid bolt, bolt with spiders, bolt with RBE3 command and bolt with shell elements. This wizard also facilitates multiple generations of solid bolts in the linear and circumferential directions. The utility of this wizard was quantified by six-sigma methodology.

Acknowledgement
The authors wish to thank the management of TATA Consultancy Services for providing the encouragement and infrastructure to carryout this work. We also thank our colleagues for all their valuable suggestions during the development of this wizard.

References
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Paul Raines, Tcl/Tk Pocket Reference, O'Reilly & Associates. Brent Welch, Ken Jones, Jeffrey Hobbs, Practical programming in Tcl and Tk, Prentice Hall, 4th Edition Jerome Montgomery, Methods for modeling bolts in bolted connections (http://ansys.net/ansys/papers/nonlinear/methods_for_modeling_bolts.pdf) Ansys online help manual. Thomas Pyzdek, The Six Sigma Handbook, Revised and Expanded: The Complete Guide for Greenbelts, Blackbelts, and Managers at All Levels, McGraw-Hill Trade, 2nd edition.

Appendix A
Following are the process capability chart quantifying the process improvement in terms of z-values. In all cases, if the time taken to model the bolt is greater than 180 sec, it is taken as a defect (i.e. Upper Specification Limit in all cases is 180 sec). A significant improvement in z-value is obtained in each case.

1. Process capability charts for solid bolt with and without the use of the wizard

Improvement in sigma value from -5.54 to 7.

2. Process capability charts for bolt with spiders with and without the use of the wizard

Improvement in sigma value from -7 to 6.93.

3. Process capability charts for bolt with RBE3 elements with and without the use of the wizard

Improvement in sigma value from -6.65 to 7.

4. Process capability charts for bolt with shell elements with and without the use of the wizard

Improvement in sigma value from -7 to 7.