ANSYS 12 - Beam - Step 2

Step 2: Geometry

At Workbench, in the Beam cell, right click on Geometry, and select Properties. You will see the properties menu on the right of the Workbench window. Under Basic Geometry Options, select Line Bodies. This is because we are going to create a line geometry.

In the Project Schematic, double left click on Geometry to start preparing the geometry.

At this point, a new window, ANSYS Design Modeler will be opened. You will be asked to select desired length unit. Use the default meter unit and click OK.

Creating a Sketch

Like any other common CAD modeling practice, we start by creating a sketch.

Start by creating a sketch on the XYPlane. Under Tree Outline, select XYPlane, then click on Sketching next to Modeling tab. This will bring up the Sketching Toolboxes.

Note: In sketching mode, there is Undo features that you can use if you make any mistake.

Select Sketching Toolboxes Demo

 
On the right, there is a Graphic window. At the lower right hand corner of the Graphic window, click on the +Z axis to have a normal look of the XY Plane.

Select Normal View Demo

In the Sketching Toolboxes, select Line. In the Graphics window, create three rough lines from starting from the origin in the positive XY direction (Make sure that you see a letter P at the origin and at each connection between the lines. The letter P the geometry is constrained at the point.)
You should have something like this:

Note: You do not have to worry about dimension for now, we can dimension them properly in the later step.

Dimensions

Under Sketching Toolboxes, select Dimensions tab, use the default dimensioning tools. Dimension the geometry as shown:

Under Details View on the lower left corner, input the value for dimension appropriately.
H1: 0.1 m
H2: 0.2 m
H3: 0.1 m

We are done with sketching.

Create Surface 

Now that we have the sketch done, we can create a line body for this sketch.

Concept > Lines From Sketches

This will create a new line Line1. Under Details View, select Sketch1 as Base Objects and click Apply. Finally click Generate to generate the surface. This is what you should see under your Tree Outline.

Create Cross Section

We will now add a cross section to the line body.

Concept > Cross Section > Rectangular 

Under Details View, input value as follow:

B - 0.05m

H - 1m

Finally, under expand the Line Body
Outline > 1 Part, 1 Body > Line Body
And attach Rect1 to Cross Section under Details View.

We are done with geometry. You can close the Design Modeler and go back to Workbench (Don't worry, it will auto save).

Go to Step 3: Mesh

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