Families of Frequencies in Cyclic Symmetry Analysis
The ADINA analysis capabilities using cyclic symmetry are very powerful and were strengthened further from ADINA 8.5 onwards (see also Gluing in Cyclic Symmetry). The user can now also select to limit the frequency solution to only some frequencies in the "families of frequencies" in which frequencies are very close and have similar mode shapes and modal stresses. Such families of frequencies are typically encountered in cyclic symmetric structures, e.g., turbines.
Figure 1: Mesh Used in Problem
The figure below shows graphs of the first 128 natural frequencies of the 32-blade fan model shown above. The frequency groupings are very clear from the figure. The movie above shows the modal stresses for two frequencies in the second frequency group showing very similar modal stress patterns.
Figure 2: First 128 Frequencies of Fan
Using the new features, the analysis can now be restricted to, for example, only 2 frequencies per family (for 4 families) resulting in the 8 representative frequencies marked in the figure (together with their mode shapes and modal stresses).
| Full Analysis with 128 Frequencies | Restricted Analysis with 8 Frequencies | |
| Solution Time | 178 s | 10 s |
| Size of Results File | 2.8 GB | 0.2 GB |
Figure 3: Comparison of Solution Time and Size of Results File
The table above shows the savings in total solution time, and in the size of the results file for the restricted analysis of only the 8 representative frequencies. The savings in solution time and disk space are clearly very large, showing the effectiveness of the ADINA solution.
See also: