How to model a winch/drum with a spooled cable?

Amr Ranneh

Scott_Z_2

The Multidisciplinary toolkit plugin, also called the MD toolkit, is a library of various scripts that can help when modeling specific features as well as workflows.  For example, there are methods for linking MotionSolve with Hypermesh, Activate, Compose or Flux for specific applications.  In terms of features, there is a Cable toolkit.  The cable systems can be modeled in one of two ways, depending on your objective:

1. Using analytical relationships between the pulleys and drum.  Transverse cable vibration is not considered.  Loads on the various pulley anchor points and the longitudinal cable stiffness effects are considered.

2. Using a more advanced method which discretizes the cable, but also capturing transverse vibration.  This method will require more setup work than the analytical option.  In this setup, the cable could also be made to physically contact other bodies, using the standard Contact feature in MotionView.

To activate the toolkit, click on File --> Load --> Preferences --> Multi-Disciplinary Tools --> Load

Hope this helps.

Scott Z

 

Amr Ranneh

Scott Ziemba_21777 said:

The Multidisciplinary toolkit plugin, also called the MD toolkit, is a library of various scripts that can help when modeling specific features as well as workflows.  For example, there are methods for linking MotionSolve with Hypermesh, Activate, Compose or Flux for specific applications.  In terms of features, there is a Cable toolkit.  The cable systems can be modeled in one of two ways, depending on your objective:

1. Using analytical relationships between the pulleys and drum.  Transverse cable vibration is not considered.  Loads on the various pulley anchor points and the longitudinal cable stiffness effects are considered.

2. Using a more advanced method which discretizes the cable, but also capturing transverse vibration.  This method will require more setup work than the analytical option.  In this setup, the cable could also be made to physically contact other bodies, using the standard Contact feature in MotionView.

To activate the toolkit, click on File --> Load --> Preferences --> Multi-Disciplinary Tools --> Load

Hope this helps.

Scott Z

 

Much appreciated Scott for your elaborate answer! I'll try to check this out. 

Do you have any further references or tutorials about that?
The only example I saw on the internet was tc but it's too complicated a project for a begginer. I think they employed the MD python script to model the winch. I tried to reverse-engineering the project to understand how exactly the winch is modeled but unfortunately, I didn't succeed.

The mobile crane project:

https://community.altair.com/community?sys_kb_id=b1b6c264dbc7c8102af07608f49619a1&id=kb_article_view&sysparm_rank=1&sysparm_tsqueryId=f6de2fd8dbe03410e8863978f49619d8

Regards,

Amr

Scott_Z_2

Hello Amr,

I don't believe there is detailed documentation in using the cable feature on the "Mobile Crane" example. However, I am attaching a document that explains the MD toolkit Cable feature in more detail.  It uses an existing model that gets installed with the toolkit.

I am also attaching a setup Readme doc. Keep in mind that Altair COMPOSE should be installed for the examples and toolkit to work. Correctly.

-Scott Z