Vary diameter of tapered beam

Lucy Young

Hi all,

I'm trying to create a tapered, hollow cone component and then vary the diameter in an optimization. So far, I've tried 2 methods.

1) Using a PBEAM/PBEAML with stations to create tapered beams. However, with PBEAML, it says I can't create a design variable property relationship with a PBEAML when it has stations. So I'm now trying to use a PBEAM with stations. However I can't find documentation of what the PBEAM_CARD... means in the editing panel. Does anyone know where this documentation is or how to set up a tapered beam as a PBEAM?

2) The second way I've attempted is creating a 2d shell of a cone. I can't directly set the diameter as a design variable, as the only available dimension to set a desvar to is the thickness. I was thinking I could try dimensioning it and creating a parameter for the diameter that I could then vary in an optimization. Does anyone know if this could work or how to do it? 

 

Thank you in advance!

Jason_Craanen

Hi Lucy,

Here are the answers from your support question for others

Regarding 1d tapered beamsection optimization: right now Rod is supported. This is expected since the true tapered beam is only supported for ROD at this point.  If we want to support other section than ROD, this requires the development. 

For the Shell option

I think an option is as follows:

• create lower/upper bound surface shapes
• record nodal movements
  • https://help.altair.com/hwdesktop/hwx/topics/pre_processing/morph/shapes_record_movement_t.htm
• project to upper bound shape
  • https://help.altair.com/hwdesktop/hwx/topics/pre_processing/meshing/elements_align_project_t.htm?zoom_highlight=project
• stop recording
• preview shape