ANSYS Preprocessor

Abstract

The fundamental concepts and the Begin and Processor Levels of the ANSYS finite element program are described in Chap. 2.Specifications of all the geometric and material properties, as well as the generation of solid and finite element models, are conducted at the preprocessor level. There are two approaches for creating a finite element model: solid modeling and direct generation.The solid modeling approach utilizes Primitives (pre-defined geometric shapes) and operations similar to those of computer-aided design (CAD) tools, and internally generates the nodes and the elements based on user specifications.Solid modeling is the most commonly used approach because it is much more versatile and powerful. However, the user must have a strong understanding of the concept of meshing in order to utilize the solid modeling approach successfully and efficiently.