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This plot shows the resulting displacement distribution due to the gravity load: Applied Boundary Conditions Were Various Constraints at A, B, and C, as well as Acceleration Due to Gravity. The material property used was brass, with values taken from Shigley and Mitchell’s Mechanical Engineering Design text, 1983 edition. Other loads, such as sideways inertial acceleration, could have been considered as well but were ignored for the sake of simplicity for this article. Acceleration due to gravity was applied as well. In ANSYS Mechanical, the applied boundary conditions consisted of frictionless support constraints at the thumb rest locations and a vertical displacement constraint at the attachment point for the neck strap. Note ‘Blob’ of Material at Brace Location. Representative Solid Model Geometry Created in ANSYS SpaceClaim. The idea is that the topological optimization process will remove non-needed material from this blob, leaving an optimized shape after a certain level of volume reduction. I then modeled a ‘blob’ of material at the brace location. Since I was not able to easily find one freely available on the internet that looked accurate enough to be useful, I created my own in ANSYS SpaceClaim using some basic measurements of an example instrument. The first step was to obtain a CAD model of a saxophone body. The intent was to pick a saxophone part that could undergo topological optimization which would not significantly alter the musical characteristics of the instrument.
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Hopefully those examples show there can be variation in the design of this brace, while not largely tampering with the musical performance of the saxophone in general.
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Solid connection to bell, screw joint to body Older thin but solid brace rigidly connected to soldered pads Modern ring design Modern Dual Degree of Freedom with Revolute Joint Type Connections Newer designs can include rings with pivot connections between the brace and soldered pads. The older designs tend to have a simple thin brace connecting two pads soldered to the bell and body on each end. Like anything collectible, saxophones have fans of various manufacturers over the years, and horns going back to production as early as the 1920’s are still being used by some players. That being said, here are some images of example bell to body braces in vintage and modern saxophones. Rather, the intent is to show an example of the kind of work that can be done using topological optimization and will hopefully get the creative juices flowing for lots of ANSYS users who now have access to this capability. This article is not intended to be a technical discourse on the principles behind topological optimization, nor is it intended to show expertise in saxophone design. Since saxophone manufacturers like those in other industries are often looking for product differentiation, the use of an optimized organic shape in this structural component could be a nice marketing advantage. Various designs of this brace have been used by different manufacturers over the years. This brace connects the bell to the rest of the saxophone body, and provides stiffness and strength to the instrument. In deciding to write this piece, I decided an interesting example would be the brace that is part of all curved saxophones.
#ANSYS CAD CONFIGURATION MANAGER SOLIDWORKS 15 ANSYS 15 FREE#
These are free to customers with current maintenance and are available on the ANSYS Customer Portal. New to the fold are ANSYS ACT Extensions for Topological Optimization in ANSYS Mechanical for versions 17.0, 17.1, and 17.2. ANSYS has had topological optimization capability both in Mechanical APDL and Workbench in the past, but the capabilities as well as the applications at the time were limited, so those tools eventually died off. With additive manufacturing, it has become much easier to make parts with the organic shapes resulting from topological optimization. Topological optimization has seen a return to prominence in the last couple of years due to advances in additive manufacturing. ANSYS SpaceClaim has tools available to facilitate doing this. Ideally we can then create CAD geometry from this organic looking mesh shape. If the mesh is fine enough, we are left with an ‘organic’ sculpted shape elements. Rather, we’re letting the program decide on an optimal shape based on the removal of material, accomplished by deactivating mesh elements. Unlike parameter optimization such as with ANSYS DesignXplorer, we are not varying geometry parameters. What is Topological Optimization? If you’re not familiar with the concept, in finite element terms it means performing a shape optimization utilizing mesh information to achieve a goal such as minimizing volume subject to certain loads and constraints.