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Harmonic analyses are used to determine the steady-state response of a linear structure to
loads that vary sinusoidally (harmonically) with time, thus enabling you to verify whether or
not your designs will successfully overcome resonance, fatigue, and other harmful effects of
forced vibrations.
Introduction
In a structural system, any sustained cyclic load will produce a sustained cyclic or harmonic
response. Harmonic analysis results are used to determine the steady-state response of a
linear structure to loads that vary sinusoidally (harmonically) with time, thus enabling you to
verify whether or not your designs will successfully overcome resonance, fatigue, and other
harmful effects of forced vibrations.
This analysis technique calculates only the steady-state, forced vibrations of a structure. The
transient vibrations, which occur at the beginning of the excitation, are not accounted for in a
harmonic analysis.
In this analysis all loads as well as the structure’s response vary sinusoidally at the same
frequency. A typical harmonic analysis will calculate the response of the structure to cyclic
loads over a frequency range (a sine sweep) and obtain a graph of some response quantity
(usually displacements) versus frequency. “Peak” responses are then identified from graphs
of response vs. frequency and stresses are then reviewed at those peak frequencies.
Points to Remember
All loads and displacements vary sinusoidally at the same known frequency (although not
necessarily in phase).
If the Reference Temperature is set as By Body and that temperature does not match the
environment temperature, a thermally induced harmonic load will result (from the thermal
strain assuming a nonzero thermal expansion coefficient). This thermal harmonic loading is
ignored for all harmonic analysis.
Mode-Superposition (default)
For MSUP, it is advantageous for you to select an existing modal analysis directly
(although Mechanical can automatically perform a modal analysis behind the scene)
since calculating the eigenvectors is usually the most computationally expensive
portion of the method. In this way, multiple harmonic analyses with different loading
conditions could effectively reuse the eigenvectors. For more details, refer to
Harmonic Response Analysis Using Linked Modal Analysis System.
Full
Using the Full method, you obtain harmonic response through the direct solution of
the simultaneous equations of motion. In addition, a Harmonic Response analysis can
be linked to, and use the structural responses of, a Static-Structural analysis. See the
Harmonic Analysis Using Pre-Stressed Structural System section of the Help for more
information.
This property is available when the Solution Method is set to Mode Superposition.
You can turn the Include Residual Vector property On to execute the RESVEC
command and calculate residual vectors.
Nodal Force
Remote Force scoped to a Remote Point (created via Model object)
Moment scoped to a Remote Point (created via Model object)
Variational Technology
This property is available when the Solution Method is set to Full. When this
property is set to No, the Harmonic Response analysis uses the Full method. The
direct solution of the simultaneous equations of motion is solved for each excitation
frequency, i.e., frequency steps defined in the Solution Intervals. When this property
is set to Yes, it uses Variational Technology to evaluate harmonic response for each
excitation frequency based on one direct solution. This property is set to Program
Controlled by default allowing the application to select the best solution method
based on the model. For more technical information about Variational Technology,
see the Harmonic Analysis Variational Technology Method section of the Mechanical
APDL Theory Reference.
This option is an alternate Solution Method that is based on the harmonic sweep
algorithm of the Full method.
For additional information, see the HROPT command in the MAPDL Command Reference.
If a Command object is used with the MSUP method, object content is sent twice; one for the
modal solution and another for the harmonic solution. For that reason, harmonic responses
are double if a load command is defined in the object, e.g., F command.
Preparing the Analysis
From the Toolbox, drag the Harmonic Response template to the Project Schematic.
Both Young's modulus (or stiffness in some form) and density (or mass in some form) must
be defined. Material properties must be linear but can be isotropic or orthotropic, and
constant or temperature-dependent. Nonlinear properties, if any, are ignored.
Attach Geometry
Define Connections
Any nonlinear contact such as Frictional contact retains the initial status throughout the
harmonic analysis. The stiffness contribution from the contact is based on the initial status
and never changes.
The stiffness as well as damping of springs is taken into account in a Full method of
harmonic analysis. In a Mode-Superposition harmonic analysis, the damping from springs is
ignored.
Options
The Options category enables you to specify the frequency range and the
number of solution points at which the harmonic analysis will be carried out as
well as the solution method to use and the relevant controls.
Two solution methods are available to perform harmonic analysis: the Mode-
Superposition method, the Direct Integration (Full) method, and the
Variational Technology method.
This is the default method, and generally provides results faster than
the Full method or the Variational Technology method. The Mode-
Superposition method cannot be used if you need to apply imposed
(nonzero) displacements. This method also allows solutions to be
clustered about the structure's natural frequencies. This results in a
smoother, more accurate tracing of the response curve. The default
method of equally spaced frequency points can result in missing the
peak values.
Damping Controls
These properties enable you to specify damping for the structure in the
Harmonic Response analysis. Controls include: Constant Damping Ratio,
Stiffness Coefficient (beta damping), and a Mass Coefficient (alpha
damping). They can also be applied as Material Damping using the
Engineering Data tab.
These properties enable you to save solution files from the harmonic analysis.
The default behavior is to only keep the files required for postprocessing. You
can use these controls to keep all files created during solution or to create and
save the Mechanical APDL application database (db file).
For a Pre-Stressed Full Harmonic analysis, the preloaded status of a structure is used as a
starting point for the Harmonic analysis. That is, the static structural analysis serves as an
Initial Condition for the Full Harmonic analysis. See the Applying Pre-Stress Effects section
of the Help for more information.
Note:
Currently, the initial conditions Initial Displacement and Initial Velocity are not supported
for Harmonic analyses.
A Harmonic Response Analysis supports the following boundary conditions for a Solution
Method setting of either Full or MSUP:
Inertial
Loads
Pressure
Pipe Pressure (line bodies only) - Not supported for MSUP Solution
Method.
Force (applied to a face, edge, or vertex)
Moment
Remote Force
Bearing Load (Phase Angle not supported.)
Line Pressure
Given a specified Displacement
Supports
Conditions
Constraint Equation
Note: Support for boundary conditions varies for a Harmonic Response analysis that is
linked to either a Static-Structural or Modal analysis. See the Harmonic Response Analysis
Using Linked Modal Analysis System or the Harmonic Analysis Using Pre-Stressed Structural
System sections of the Help for specific boundary condition support information.
Solution Information continuously updates any listing output from the solver and provides
valuable information on the behavior of the structure during the analysis.
Review Results
Contour plots include stress, elastic strain, and deformation, and are basically
the same as those for other analyses. If you wish to see the variation of
contours over time for these results, you must specify an excitation frequency
and a phase. The Sweeping Phase property in the details view for the result is
the specified phase, in time domain, and it is equivalent to the product of the
excitation frequency and time. Because Frequency is already specified in the
Details view, the Sweeping Phase variation produces the contour results
variation over time. The Sweeping Phase property defines the parameter used
for animating the results over time. You can then see the total response of the
structure at a given point in time, as shown below.
By setting the Amplitude property to Yes, you can see the amplitude contour
plots at a specified frequency.
Since each node may have different phase angles from one another, the
complex response can also be animated to see the time-dependent motion.
Note: You can create a contour result from a Frequency Response result type in a
Harmonic Analysis using the Create Contour Result feature. This feature creates a new result
object in the tree with the same Type, Orientation, and Frequency as the Frequency
Response result type. However, the Phase Angle of the contour result has the same
magnitude as the frequency result type but an opposite sign (negative or positive). The sign of
the phase angle in the contour result is reversed so that the response amplitude of the
frequency response plot for that frequency and phase angle matches with the contour results.