Workshop 6

Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis

14.5 Release

ANSYS LS-DYNA
in Mechanical APDL
© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. February 5, 2013 1 Release 14.5
 Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• This workshop essentially duplicates the Benchmark C8 problem in
the ANSYS Verification Manual. An aluminum rod is shot into a rigid
boundary and the final length of the rod is compared to experimental
data. Due to the efficiency of an explicit solver in running transient
dynamic problems of short duration, the mesh was made finer than
that used for the implicit solution. The required input file is crash.inp
• Step-by-step instructions are shown on the following slides. Your
instructor will give those details particular to your site.
• crash.inp is fully commented. A /EOF command stops the input
stream after the majority of the model is created, allowing you to
complete the exercise yourself. The GUI generated commands
appear after the /EOF command, so you can compare them to your
.LOG file, if you experience any problems.

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• Start ANSYS/Multiphysics/LS-DYNA in the GUI mode

• Read in the input file “ crash.inp ”

Utility Menu > File > Read input from … > crash.inp > OK
OR issue:
/input, crash.inp

• SOLID164 elements are used for both the

aluminum rod (bullet) and the rigid body
(comprised of a single element).

• A BISO material model is defined for the

bullet. (Review material model in GUI …)

• Only the initial rod velocity and contact

conditions need to be defined.

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• First define the initial velocity of the aluminum rod:
Preprocessor > LS-DYNA Options > Initial Velocity > On Nodes > w/Axial Rotate >
component: NROD > VZ: - 478.0 > OK

OR issue:
/prep7
edvel, vgen, nrod, 0, 0, -478.0

• The nodal component NROD was

already created for you. It contains
the aluminum rod nodes.
OK

• The VGEN option of the EDVEL command was used. This option
corresponds to the *INITIAL_VELOCITY_GENERATION command in
LS-DYNA. The VGEN option is recommended for most applications.

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• Next define the contact surfaces:
Preprocessor > LS-DYNA Options > Contact > Define Contact > Nodes to Surface >
General (NTS) > OK > NROD > NWALL > OK

• Accept the
remaining
defaults...
OK

OR issue:
edcgen, nts, nrod, nwall OK

• Existing nodal components were used to define the contact (slave)

and target (master) surfaces. Due to the high speed of the projectile,
nodes-to-surface contact was used instead of single surface contact.
The default global contact controls are sufficient (EDCONTACT).
Component NWALL contains the nodes on the front of the wall.
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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• List the contact surfaces to verify their correct creation :
Preprocessor > LS-DYNA Options > Contact > List Entities > All > OK

• Note contact number, type,

and contact/target surfaces…

OR issue:
edclist

• Plot the contact surfaces, as well:

Preprocessor > LS-DYNA Options > Contact > Select and Plot > 1 > OK

OR issue:
edpc, 1
OK

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• Note that the EDPC command not only plots the
contact entities desired, it also makes the
corresponding nodes and elements the actively
selected set:

• The nodal component NROD contains all

of the nodes in the aluminum projectile,
but the nodal component NWALL just
contains the four nodes on the front face
of the rigid body block.

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• Now reselect everything, save the model, enter solution, and solve it:
Utility Menu > Select > Everything
ANSYS Toolbar > SAVE_DB
Solution > Solve > OK > Yes

OR issue:
allsel,all
save
/solu
The block is constrained via EDMP, RIGID
solve

• When the solution is done, enter POST1 and animate the results:
General Postproc > Read Results > Last Set
General Postproc > Plot Results > Contour Plot > Nodal Solu >
Stress > von Mises SEQV > OK (or whatever else you wish to animate)
Utility Menu > PlotCtrls > Animate > Over Results > Increment result set: 5 > Auto
contour scaling: Off > Stress > von Mises SEQV > OK

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis

OR issue:
/post1
set, last
plnsol, s, eqv • Close the animation
andata, 0.5, , , , , 5, , 0 before continuing on.

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• Next, switch over to POST26 (Time History postprocessor) and check the internal
and hourglass energies stored on the matsum file:
TimeHist Postpro > File > Open Results … > Files of Type: Explicit Dynamics Results (*.his) >
crash.his > Open > crash.db > Open
• Continue with the mouse picks shown below:

9 6
8

2
3

Part 1 = Bullet Use Ctrl key for

5
multiple picks
4 7

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
OR issue:
/post26
numvar, 200
file, crash, his
edread, 2, matsum, 1
store, merge
plvar, 2, 10

• Note that the hourglass energy

is very low (OK).

• Finally, compare the ANSYS LS-DYNA deformation results to those of

the experiment. The final measured length of the bullet was 0.01358
meters. The final FEA bullet length was approximately 0.0136 meters.

• Use POST26 to calculate the length of the bullet during the transient.

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• Some of the initial work (defining length0 array, etc.) has already been done for
you. Consult the input file crash.inp for more information.
• To save time, only the batch commands will be shown. Copy these commands from
the input file and paste them into the Input Window:
*set, ntrack, node(0.0,0.0,0.02347) ! node at center of free end of rod
nsol, 11, ntrack, u, z, uz_track ! rod displacement at free end
ncont = node(0.0,0.0,0.0) ! node at center of impact end of rod
nsol, 12, ncont, u, z, uz_cont ! rod displacement at impact end
store, merge ! do not overwrite energy data …
vput, length0(1), 13 ! original rod length, 0.02347 m
add, 14, 11, 12, 13, rod_len, , , 1.0, -1.0, 1.0 ! current rod length, m
plvar, 11, 12, 14 ! final rod length = 0.0136 m

• Note: You can enter the equivalent POST26 GUI commands instead…

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis
• When done, exit ANSYS:
ANSYS Toolbar > Quit > OK
OR issue:
/eof
© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. February 5, 2013
• The final rod length is
roughly 0.0136 meters,
with a little oscillation.
• Note how the free end of
the rod continues moving
forward when the rod
makes contact with the
rigid wall.
• After approximately
0.00004 seconds, the rod
starts to bounce back off
of the wall without much
change in shape (since
elastic-perfectly plastic
material assumed).
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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis

• Included in the Appendix of this Workshop Supplement is an ANSYS implicit

version of the impact model, called crash_2.inp
• Although the two versions are very similar, there are some differences between
the two. In the explicit analysis, the time step is controlled by the element
characteristic lengths and material properties. In the implicit analysis, bisection
is based on the increase in plastic strain and the ability to converge upon the
solution. Therefore, the comparison is not exact, but does show that ANSYS LS-
DYNA is the preferred code in this case.
• Run times are for the following machine using 1 CPU:
– Dell Precision M6400 Intel Cpre Extreme CPU Q9300 2.54 GHz Quad core PC
running Windows 7 64-bit

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 … Aluminum Rod Impact Analysis

Implicit Run Explicit Run Implicit Run Explicit Run

Elapsed Time Elapsed Time Final Rod Final Rod
(seconds) (seconds) Length (m) Length (m)
805 7 0.0140 0.0136

• The final measured length of the bullet was 0.0132 meters.

• The implicit solution took over 110 times longer to run than the comparable
explicit solution, which gave similar results. By loosening some of the
convergence controls, the implicit solution speed could be increased, but only
at the expense of the quality of the results. However, for very slow transient
dynamic problems, implicit solutions are usually more efficient.

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