ANSYS Parametric Design of Double Layer Cylinder Reticulated Shell by the Upper and Lower Translation

Abstract

The five double layer cylinder reticulated shells (single diagonal rod cylinder reticulated shell, Foeppl cylinder reticulated shell, double diagonal rod cylinder reticulated shell, lamella cylinder reticulated shell and three way grid of cylinder reticulated shell) are developed by adopting the upper and lower translation method. Five connection forms of web member (cross truss, positive four pyramidal, upend four pyramidal, evacuated positive four pyramidal, evacuated upend four pyramidal) and the methods of the node generation and element connection are established in the cylindrical coordinate system. By using the ANSYS parametric design language APDL, the corresponding parametric design macro program is developed so that the five double-layer cylindrical shells can be parametrically modeled under the given parameters such as shell type, shell span D, rise high t, thickness h, length L and number of grids m and n, etc. Examples prove that this method is simple, efficient and pragmatic, which provides great convenience for the force analysis and the optimization scheme comparison.