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Moving from UNIX to PC New competency center an insiders view

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER $19.95 1999 VOLUME 3, NUMBER 6

Special Report

ANALYSIS & SIMULATION

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE CATIA OPERATORS EXCHANGE

S P E C I A L R E P O R T : A N A LY S I S a n d S I M U L AT I O N

CASE STUDY
When bird and plane collide
Integrated nonlinear structural finite element analysis in CATIA
Bernhard Dopker and Maxime Albi

Many design considerations define aircraft structure. Various lifting and drag forces are the more obvious loads that an airplane structure must be able to withstand. Less intuitive but very important forces are due to the pressure loading of the fuselage at high altitude. Another set of design loads is based on conditions that the aircraft may encounter only a few times throughout its life. For such loading, the aircraft may sustain some damage, but it must not fail catastrophically. The impact between a large bird and an airplane is typical of such a condition. Among the many modern tools used to design and analyze an airplane, computerassisted design and finite element analysis (FEA) technology are the most prominent. Herein, we discuss the integration of CATIA with the ABAQUS nonlinear finite element analysis code built by HKS (Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen, Inc., Pawtucket, R.I.). To demonstrate the applicability of the integrated system used in the airplane design process, we investigated two loading conditions on a forward bulkhead in the fuselage of an airplane. The bulkhead analyzed was located in front of the flight deck (see Figure 1); it was a complex single casting, approximately 5 feet by 6 feet (see Figure 2).

Figure 1. Location of bulkhead

Leveraging the CATIA geometry data definition


The cast bulkhead has unique characteristics in that it is a single monolithic structure, with many complex intersecting surfaces. Its geometry was initially defined in CATIA as a single solid model. The construction geometry consisted of the midsurfaces that comprise the casting. This approach allowed the analyst to use these mid-surfaces to build the finite element model needed to perform the structural analysis.
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Many manufacturing features were also used to simplify the casting process. During geometry definition, the LAYER function was used extensively to create CATIA layers and filters. This approach allowed organization of the bulkhead geometry components shown in Figure 3 into the following layers: forward shell, aft shell, rays, intercostals (stiffeners on the aft shell), test fixture and flanges. Well-organized use of layers, in turn, allowed for easy management of the geometry in support of downstream analysis processes. With all the geometry defined in CATIA, the FEA process was immediate, since no geometry transfers were needed. Thus, for example, no IGES (or I guess) was required to transfer the CATIA geometry data to an FEA preprocessor. The key benefit of modeling in CATIA was the strong associativity between the geometry and the finite element modeling (FEM) tool. CATIA imposed user-defined finite element mesh specifications directly upon the geometry. These included local mesh refinements, meshing constraints and gaps and tolerances. Furthermore, if the geometry had been updated after the bulkhead was meshed, the mesh would
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have been updated automatically. After a mesh is completed, the loads and boundary conditions needed to perform structural analysis are specified directly on the CATIA geometry.

The modeling process


The strategy for idealizing the structure was to define the meshing sequence, starting with the critical areas of interest. The desired meshing approach should be defined early during the construction of the CATIA geometry layers and filters. If the designer is building the layers, clear communication is critical, so that the layers can be used advantageously during the meshing needed for structural analysis. The CATIA filters were constructed, so that a combination of the layers could be displayed concurrently for easy visualization and modeling. The filters were particularly useful in visualizing the many intersecting surfaces in the bulkhead prior to meshing the components. Colors were also used extensively to group components with the same thickness. Later, when defining a specific shell thickness, it became easy to select the group using a specific color. The modeling sequence started by meshing half the rays, then the forward shell.

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November/December 1999

Next, CATIA symmetry transformation was used to mirror the meshed rays. All the other components were nonsymmetrical. The 30 intercostals were meshed next, followed by the aft shell. The seven flanges and the test fixture were meshed last. Typical meshing of various geometry sections is shown in Figures 4 and 5. Note that all the CATIA geometry functions can be used during construction of the finite element meshes. The CAD portion and the CAE portion live in the same environment. Conditions exist when an analysis mesh must conform to geometric entities such as points, lines and curves. These conformance criteria are known as meshing constraints.

Model verification
After the meshing was completed, the next step was to check the mesh quality to ensure that the elements respected the criteria imposed in the element selection toolbox. CATIA offers extensive mesh quality checking, including the element distortion limits, the warp factor, length ratio, skew angle, etc. (see Figure 6). The user may customize the values associated with the quality criteria, depending on the choice of solver. CATIA provides a number of options to handle elements with bad shapes, including: Condense very close nodes or move them. Delete some elements. Split elements in several ways. Remesh the family with a more appropriate element size. Visual checks should also be made on the element quality. These may be performed using colors and various display modes. For example, the free edge mode shown in Figure 7 is a good visual check of the free edges of a selected mesh. Any open edge should be corrected by condensing the nodes.

Figure 2. A close-up view of the single-piece bulkhead shows its complexity.

Figure 3. The bulkhead casting comprises 20 rays sandwiched between the forward and aft shells, eight flanges and 30 intercostals to support the test fixture (not shown).

Integration of ABAQUS in CATIA


After a finite element model is established in CATIA, it may be executed directly. Depending on the nature of the analysis, several options are available. If the structural response can be assumed to be linear, CATIA-ELFINI is the easiest tool to use in
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the CATIA environment. If the expected structural response includes geometric and material nonlinearities, the ABAQUS finite element solver can be used. This code is integrated in CATIA, such that an ABAQUS input data deck can be created, which can then be used directly by the ABAQUS solvers. With the exception
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of some unusual options related to nonlinear material, loads and boundary conditions, a complete ABAQUS input data deck is automatically exported by CATIA. If required, the ABAQUS input data deck can be manually modified. The process of moving a CATIA model into an ABAQUS model took a few minutes.

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November/December 1999

S P E C I A L R E P O R T : A N A LY S I S a n d S I M U L AT I O N

Figure 4. The CATIA mesh successfully captured eight intersecting surfaces and two flanges, prior to meshing the parts.

Figure 5. The CATIA mesh successfully captured 13 intersecting surfaces and two intercostals, prior to meshing the parts.

Performing a static nonlinear analysis


Figure 6. The element quality toolbox table, with the quality criteria listed, and the display mode are used to check element shapes.

The bulkhead was analyzed under various pressure conditions to verify the fatigue resistance of the bulkhead under repeated internal pressurization of the fuselage during flight. In this discussion, we considered the ultimate pressure load of 18.4 psi (pressure per square inch). The distribution of in-plane stretching and out-of-plane bending in thin shells is very sensitive to geometric changes. Because the thickness of the shell sections of the bulkhead is very thin, a small change in the geometry has a significant influence on the overall stress distribution. Therefore, the FEA had to account for geometric nonlinearities. Dynamic effects were assumed to be negligibly small because the rate of pressurization is fairly slow; hence, a static analysis was performed. With the integration of ABAQUS into the CATIA environment, a complete ABAQUS input data deck was generated by CATIA and then executed in ABAQUS. Typical von Mises stress results for an 18.4 psi pressure load are shown in Figure 8.

Figure 7. The results of the free edge check of the bulkhead rays are displayed. Note that all contours are closed; this indicates a good mesh.

Performing a dynamic nonlinear analysis


Another factor in designing the bulkhead was that it must have sufficient strength to withstand a bird impacting the airplane. The bulkhead is allowed to sustain damage, but it must not be penetrated. The energy of a bird impact may damage and fracture the
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Figure 8. Visualization of typical von Mises stresses under high pressure loading of the bulkhead.

Figure 9. The velocity in the forward direction at 0.8 millisecond after initial impact shows the partial disintegration of the bird.

aluminum skin of the outer bulkhead shell. However, the inner bulkhead shell must absorb the remaining energy of the bird. To verify the bulkhead strength, an elliptically shaped body with a weight of four pounds and the density of water approximated a bird. The bird model was assigned very low shear strength. It was assumed to deform plastically and then disintegrate at very low stress levels compared to aluminum. To analyze such a complex impact phenomenon, an explicit finite element code such as ABAQUS/Explicit must be used. Since ABAQUS/Explicit is also fully integrated in CATIA, both the bulkhead and the bird models were defined in the CATIA environment. The overall process of generating a basic ABAQUS input dataset and making some minor changes to the input deck required approximately one hour. The analysis discussed here was quite challenging, with the results being examined carefully to reach proper conclusions. First, one had to examine the velocity history. Shortly after the initial impact the bird moved mostly forward. Where the bird made contact with the bulkhead, the bird started to disintegrate; this could be identified by a large change in the velocity (see Figure 9). During impact, the skin on the forward shell of the bulkhead fractured. By the end of the impact, a significant part of the forward shell was fractured, so it was removed
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from the analysis (see Figure 10). The removal of parts of the structure was modeled by using eroding elements provided by ABAQUS. These types of elements are automatically removed from the analytical model without user interference when a certain strain level is reached. After an element is removed, the analysis continues, with loads from the removed element(s) redistributed to adjacent elements. Because of dynamic effects and repeated removal of elements, stress levels continually change throughout the structure as a function of time in a very complex manner.

Conclusions

Full integration of FEA tools in CATIA and complete associativity between the analysis and geometry models are essential to reducing design cycle time and costs and to improving product quality. These benefits were clearly demonstrated during the structural analysis of the bulkhead using both the CATIA modeling tool and the ABAQUS nonlinear solvers. The two examples presented here demonstrate the ease-of-use for both the Figure 10. The von Mises stresses at 4.0 milliseconds nonlinear implicit ABAQUS/ after initial impact show that the maximum stress is Standard solver and the non- not necessarily adjacent to the fractured surface.
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linear ABAQUS/Explicit solver within the CATIA environment. It should be noted that the ease of model generation does not obviate the need of expert knowledge in performing nonlinear structural analysis to interpret the results properly. In this study the analysis showed that the forward skin thickness needed to be increased from the initial design for the bulkhead to withstand impact with a four-pound bird. Bernhard Dopker is an associate technical fellow at the Boeing Co. He can be reached at 425/237-9143 or at bernhard.dopker@boe ing.com. Maxime Albi is an engineering specialist at the IBM Aerospace Competency Center. He can be reached at 206/587-2740 or at mlalbi@us.ibm.com.

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