EDEM-RecurDyn Coupling Quick Start Guide

Transcription

1 EDEM-RecurDyn Coupling Quick Start Guide

2 Copyrights and Trademarks Copyright 2017 DEM Solutions Ltd.. All rights reserved. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement or nondisclosure agreement. The software may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of those agreements. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording for any purpose other than the purchaser s personal use without the written permission of DEM Solutions Ltd. DEM Solutions Ltd. 49 Queen Street Edinburgh EH2 3NH UK EDEM incorporates CADfix translation technology. CADfix is owned, supplied by and Copyright TranscenData Europe Limited, All Rights Reserved. This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group. EDEM uses the Mersenne Twister random number generator, Copyright , Makoto Matsumoto and Takuji Nishimura, All rights reserved. EDEM includes CGNS (CFD General Notation System) software. See the Online Help for full copyright notice. EDEM, EDEM Creator, EDEM Simulator, EDEM Analyst and Particle Factory are registered trademarks of DEM Solutions Ltd.. EDEM Field Data Coupling TM, EDEM CFD Coupling Interface TM and EDEM Multibody Dynamics Coupling Interface TM are Trademarks of DEM Solutions Ltd.. All other brands or product names are the property of the respective owners. 2

3 Introduction EDEM has collaborated with FunctionBay to create a coupling between EDEM and RecurDyn, to allow for the modelling of realistic material loads in RecurDyn s Multi- Body Dynamics (MBD) simulations. With the releases of EDEM and RecurDyn V9R1, it is now possible to run advanced numerical simulations that take advantage of EDEM s accuracy for modelling bulk material, partnered with RecurDyn s powerful MBD solver. This following quick start guide has been written with the assumption that the user has prior knowledge of both EDEM and RecurDyn. As such, this guide does not go into depth on RecurDyn or EDEM set up, but focusses on coupling the two pieces of software. Requirements Coupling between EDEM and RecurDyn is only currently possible using EDEM 2018 and RecurDyn V9R1, or later. The coupling is currently only supported on Windows. Initial set up of the coupling files Once EDEM and RecurDyn are installed on your machine, you need to copy one of the configuration files from the EDEM install directory to the RecurDyn install directory. 1. Locate the EDEMV1_0_0.xml file in the \lib\ folder of the EDEM install directory. 2. Copy this file to the \Bin\Solver\CoSim\StdParticleInterface\ folder in the RecurDyn install directory. This *.xml file is read by RecurDyn to access the location of EDEMRecurDynCouplingClient1.dll in the EDEM install directory; consequently the location specified in the xml file should match that of the *.dll file. For EDEM 2018, lines 23 to 25 of EDEMV1_0_0.xml should look like the following: Edit this last line accordingly for your location of EDEM. 3

4 Once the *.xml file has been copied to the correct location, upon launching RecurDyn you will see a new tab in the task bar: External SPI. Within this tab are the tools necessary to couple EDEM with RecurDyn. Step 1: Set up the RecurDyn Model The first step in a EDEM-RecurDyn coupled simulation is to create the RecurDyn model. You can use *.rdyn files you may have already created, or you can create a fresh *.rdyn file. Once you have created your RecurDyn model, you need to select the geometries that you would like to export to EDEM, which will be included in EDEM s particlegeometry force calculations. There is no need to export every geometry from the RecurDyn simulation to the EDEM simulation. If you do choose to export all geometries from a particularly large RecurDyn simulation, this will likely increase your simulation time. 1. In RecurDyn, click the External SPI tab on the toolbar. If you cannot see this option, see the Initial set up of the coupling files section and make sure that you have followed the necessary steps. 2. Click the Walls button. 3. In the 3D viewer, select the geometries you would like to export to the EDEM simulation; you can select a single geometry or multiple geometries from a body. Once you have selected a geometry, an entry will appear in the Walls section of your model; you can rename these walls at this stage, but note that the name given here will be the same as that seen in EDEM. 4

5 4. Once you have selected your relevant geometries, click the Export button. This will open a dialog box to save a *.wall file, which is a text file that stores the names, locations and orientations of the exported geometries. 5. Rename the file if you wish and click Save. Upon clicking save, the *.wall file is created, along with separate *.stl files for all the previously selected geometries. Step 2: Set up the EDEM Model The *.wall file produced by RecurDyn is used to populate EDEM with the *.stl files of the RecurDyn geometries. To import the geometries using the *.wall file: 1. Enable the RecurDyn Coupling checkbox in Tools > Options > Coupling Options. 2. Right click on Geometries in the Creator Tree and select Import Geometry from RecurDyn. 3. Navigate to where the *.wall file is located, select the file and click Open. 4. The geometries are exported from RecurDyn using SI units, so leave the Choose Units options as Meters and click OK. 5. It is recommended that you leave the Geometry Import Parameters as default, but you may change them if you wish. Click OK once you are happy with the parameters. The geometries listed in the *.wall file are imported and positioned as they appear in RecurDyn. Once the geometries are imported, you can set up the rest of the EDEM model. You can also add any additional geometries, such as factories, but it is 5

6 recommended that you only add virtual geometries so as not to interfere with the RecurDyn model which will have no knowledge of these additional geometries. Step 3: Run the Coupled Simulation EDEM-RecurDyn coupled simulations are driven by RecurDyn. The RecurDyn process controls the total run time of the simulation and so this must be set in RecurDyn. The Total Time setting in the EDEM Simulator has no bearing on the coupled simulation time, though the EDEM Time Step is still used and all the usual caveats apply when choosing a value. 1. In EDEM, start the Coupling Server. 2. In RecurDyn, go to Analysis > Dyn/Kin > Dyn/Kin. 3. Set the End Time for the simulation. 4. Click Simulate. 6

7 RecurDyn will start its simulation process first and output some initial data to the Message window. A short time after the RecurDyn simulation starts, the EDEM simulation starts. The two pieces of software will take turns to simulate until the End Time specified in RecurDyn is reached. You can pause the simulation to check the RecurDyn model animation by clicking the pause button in RecurDyn. This temporarily stops the RecurDyn and EDEM solvers, which can then be restarted or stopped. Step 4: Post Processing The results of the simulation can be analyzed in both RecurDyn and EDEM. RecurDyn offers more in depth results data on the geometries and associated forces, and EDEM offers more information relating to the particles. You can play back animations, and record videos, of the simulation in both programs. Particles are visualized in RecurDyn, though full rendering of the particles is dependent on your graphics card (and drivers). In EDEM, you can only visualize the geometries that you exported from RecurDyn. 7