Fixed Supports

This boundary condition prevents one or more:

 Flat or curved faces from moving or deforming

 Straight or curved edges from moving or deforming.
 Vertices from moving.

Displacements

Displacements are applied at the geometry level. They require that one or more flat or curved
faces or edges or one or more vertices to displace relative to their original location by one or
more components of a displacement vector in the world coordinate system or local coordinate
system, if applied.

Remote Displacement

A Remote Displacement allows you to apply both displacements and rotations at an arbitrary
remote location in space. You specify the origin of the remote location under Scope in the
Details view by picking, or by entering the XYZ coordinates directly. The default location is
at the centroid of the geometry. You specify the displacement and rotation under Definition.

A Remote Displacement is classified as a remote boundary condition. Refer to the Remote

Boundary Conditions section for a listing of all remote boundary conditions and their
characteristics.

Impedance Boundary

This boundary condition is available for the explicit solver only.

You can use the impedance boundary condition to transmit waves through cell faces. The
boundary condition predicts the pressure P in the dummy cell from the impedance, particle
velocity and a reference pressure (P0). Only the perpendicular component is transmitted, as
the pressure is spherical. Therefore, the Impedance boundary condition is only approximate,
and should be placed as far as possible from region of interest.
Theory

In order to economize on problem size it is sometimes advantageous for problems which have
only outward traveling solutions (e.g. an expanding high pressure source) to limit the size of
the grid by a boundary condition which allows outward traveling waves to pass through it
without reflecting energy back into the computational grid.

In practice it proves impossible to include a simple boundary condition which is accurate for
all wave strengths but the algorithm used here give a reasonable approximation over a wide
spectrum. However it should always be borne in mind that the condition is only approximate
and some reflected wave, however small, will be created and care must be taken that such a
wave does not have a significant effect on the later solution. Note that the following analysis
deals only with the normal component of velocity of the wave and the velocity component
parallel to the boundary is assumed to be unaffected by the boundary.

For a one-dimensional wave traveling in the direction of increasing x, the conditions on the
rearward facing characteristic are

where ρc is the acoustic impedance  (ρ is the local density and c is the local sound speed)
and dp and du are the changes of pressure and velocity normal to the wave along the
characteristic. Since it is assumed that no wave energy is being propagated back in the
direction of decreasing x the error in applying the above condition on a non-characteristic
direction is in general small and it is applied on the transmitting boundary in the form

Where:

uN is the component of mean velocity normal to the boundary

[ρc]boundary is the assumed Material Impedance for the boundary

pref  is the user defined reference pressure

uref is the user defined reference velocity at the boundary

For an initially stationary structure at zero pressure, the reference values (pref and uref) are
normally set to zero. In this case we have

which is exact for a plane elastic longitudinal wave propagating in an infinite elastic medium.

Frictionless Face

You use this boundary condition to prevent one or more flat or curved faces from moving or
deforming in the normal direction. The normal direction is relative to the selected geometry
face. No portion of the surface body can move, rotate, or deform normal to the face.

For tangential directions, the surface body is free to move, rotate, and deform tangential to
the face.

For a flat surface body, the frictionless support is equivalent to a symmetry condition.

Compression Only Support

Applies a compression only constraint normal to one or more faces. It is modeled internally
using Asymmetric rigid-flexible contact. A rigid target surface is constructed and/or mirrored
from the scoped faces/edges of the Compression Only Support. Therefore, the following
points should be kept in mind:

 The underlying technology is using penalty-based formulations. As a result,

normal contact stiffness can be an important parameter if nonlinear convergence
issues arise. Control normal contact stiffness using the Normal Stiffness property
of the Compression Only Support object.

 Because source and target topologies are perfect mirrors of one another, be
careful during nonlinear analyses to make that contact doesn’t “fall off” the target
face. Be sure that the contacting area on the rigid body is large enough to
accommodate any potential sliding taking place during the analysis. To avoid
this, consider using a fully fixed rigid body and a nonlinear contact to replace the
compression only support.

Consider the following model with a bearing load and supports as shown.
  

Note the effect of the compression only support in the animation of total deformation.

The following demo is presented as an animated GIF. Please view online if you are reading
the PDF version of the help. Interface names and other components shown in the demo may
differ from those in the released product.

Since the region of the face in compression is not initially known, a nonlinear solution is
required and may involve a substantial increase in solution time.

Cylindrical Support

For 3D simulations, this boundary condition prevents one or more cylindrical faces from
moving or deforming in combinations of radial, axial, or tangential directions. Any
combination of fixed and free radial, axial, and tangential settings are allowed.
Simply Supported

Available for 3D simulations only.

This boundary condition prevents one or more straight or curved edges or a vertex or vertices
from moving or deforming. However, rotations are allowed. If you want to fix the rotations as
well, use the Fixed Support boundary condition. It is applicable for surface body models or
line models only.

Fixed Rotation

You can apply a Fixed Rotation boundary condition to faces, edges, and vertices of
a surface body. When you only apply a fixed rotation support to a surface body, the geometry
is free in all translational directions. However, by default, the rotation of the geometry is
fixed about the axes of the corresponding coordinate system.

Note:  

 Rotation constraints are combined with other constraints that produce

rotational DOF assignments to determine which values to apply. They are
combined with all other constraints to determine the Nodal Coordinate
System orientation (frictionless supports, cylindrical supports, given
displacements, etc.).
 There may be circumstances in which the rotational support and other
constraints cannot resolve a discrepancy for preference of a particular
node’s coordinate system.

 Elastic Support

 Allows one or more faces (3D) or edges (2D) to move or deform according to a spring
behavior. The Elastic Support is based on a Foundation Stiffness set in the Details
view, which is defined as the pressure required to produce a unit normal deflection of
the foundation.