Ansys Short Course

About the ANSYS Short Course
What is ANSYS?
How to use these tutorials
System requirements
Conventions used
Please send us feedback

List of Tutorials

These tutorials progress from simple to more complex. If you are unfamiliar with ANSYS, please begin with the first module.

Basic Tutorials:

Intermediate Tutorials:

About the ANSYS Short Course

This ANSYS short course consists of a set of tutorials on using ANSYS to solve problems in solid mechanics. The tutorials lead the user through the steps involved in solving a selected set of problems using ANSYS. We not only provide the solution steps but also the rationale behind them. It is worthwhile for the user to understand the underlying concepts as she goes through the tutorials in order to be able to correctly apply ANSYS to other problems. The user would be ill-served by clicking through the tutorials in zombie-mode. Each tutorial is followed by problems which are geared towards strengthening and reinforcing the knowledge and understanding gained in the tutorials. Working through the problem sets is an intrinsic part of the learning process and shouldn't be skipped.

These tutorials have been developed by the Swanson Engineering Simulation Program in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University. The Swanson Engineering Simulation Program has been established with the goal of integrating computer-based simulations into the mechanical engineering curriculum. This program has been endowed by Dr. John Swanson, the founder of ANSYS Inc. and an alumnus of the Sibley School. The development of these tutorials is being supported by a Faculty Innovation in Teaching award from Cornell University.

What is ANSYS?

ANSYS is a finite-element analysis package used widely in industry to simulate the response of a physical system to structural loading, and thermal and electromagnetic effects. ANSYS uses the finite-element method to solve the underlying governing equations and the associated problem-specific boundary conditions.

How to use these tutorials

These tutorials are designed to be used online and run side-by-side with the ANSYS software. After you launch the web tutorials and ANSYS, you will have to drag the browser window to the width of the largest image (about 350 pixels). To make best use of screen real estate, move the windows around and resize them so that you approximate this screen arrangement.

System and software requirements

• System: Any system that can run ANSYS and a web browser.
• Screen: Resolution should be at least 1280 x 1024 pixels for optimal viewing. A 17" monitor or larger is recommended.
• ANSYS version 7.0. These tutorials were created using ANSYS 7.0.
• Web Browser: These tutorials work best in 5.0 or higher versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape because style sheet support is needed. These tutorials can be used with Netscape 4.x but may not render correctly.

Choose a tutorial by selecting from the list at the top of this page

Conventions used

Each tutorial begins with a problem specification. A solution can be obtained by following these nine steps:
1. Start-up and preliminary set-up
2. Specify element type and constants
3. Specify material properties
4. Specify geometry
5. Mesh geometry
6. Specify boundary conditions
7. Solve!
8. Postprocess the results
9. Validate the results
These steps appear at the top of each page of the tutorial with the current step highlighted in red.

ANSYS uses cascading menus which are represented as follows:

Main Menu > Preprocessor > Material Props > Material Models ....

This means that in the Main Menu, click on Preprocessor. Then, in the Preprocessor menu that comes up, click on Material Props and so on.

Names of windows are in italics.

Items and options appearing within menus and dialog boxes are purple, italic, and bold.

Text and numbers that need to be entered are indicated in Courier font.

Additional explanations and related discussions are enclosed in a box.