The FEA simulations pipeline
Table of Contents
Running a simulation
To analyse poles and conductors, and trigger an FEA simulation:
- Open the FEA panel as shown here,
- Select the poles and/or conductors you want to analyse, and
- In the FEA panel click Run button next to the environment you want to simulate; if you want to simulate all of the Environments, click Run All
When triggered, the simulation pipeline executes two steps:
- The conductor simulation step which determines forces using either
Ruling Span
orNetwork Solve
; and then - The structure simulation step in which cables are dropped from the poles, and the cable resultant forces obtained in step one are factored and applied to the structure - after which the structure is simulated.
If you only want to analyse poles, then you do not need to explicitly select attached conductors.
Simulations from step 1 of the pipeline will be automatically triggered when only poles are selected.
Conductor simulations
Simulation type
Select either Ruling Span or Network Solve in the Load Source section of the FEA panel:
Ruling Span type
Ruling Span is simplified approach to determining horizontal tension in strain section. It replaces multiple spans with an equivalent span for which horizontal tension is calculated.
In Ruling Span simulation the endpoints of ruling span are fixed and no interactions between cables and structures is taken into account.
Network Solve type
In Network Solve all structures and cables comprising network are simulated simultaneously. This approach takes into account cable-structure interactions and deflections that affect resulting forces in the cables.
When you select this option, additional solve options are displayed with tooltips that provide help and more information:
In addition to the Load Source solve options, the options available in the Structure Model section allow you to adjust the level of detail to model structures:
Simulation pipeline
For a given Environment, the following simulations are run in order to determine forces in cables:
- Stringing simulation: used to determine unstressed length of cables where an unstressed cable is one without any permanent deformation at stringing temperature. This simulation is the same for all simulations.
- Any number of creep and preload simulations, if applicable. Permanent deformation from this simulation is added to stringing unstressed length, and used to adjust the stress strain curve in the selected simulation.
- The selected simulation.
Simulation results
After simulations are done the results of the conductor simulations are visible in the Reports section of FEA panel:
To view a report, click on the (Select)
option in a row and then an asset in the popup menu:
Row heading | |
---|---|
Detailed (…) |
Contain specific simulation results, using the following naming scheme:
|
Section Summary |
The summary with the worst utilizations |
Structure Simulations
Pipeline
Once step 3 from a Conductor Simulation is complete, cable forces at cable connection points on the structure are transferred as point loads onto the structure.
Those point loads are then decomposed and factored with appropriate load factors. In addition to those forces, forces that are directly on the pole are also applied (weight, assemblies, plants, direct wind, etc.) - if they are set to be accounted for in the Environments tab for the simulation.
Structure simulation will apply all of the applicable solve options from the Structure Model shown in the screens above.
Results
After the simulations are complete the results of Structure Simulations are visible in the Reports section of FEA panel.
Row heading | |
---|---|
Detailed (…) |
Contain specific simulation results.
The name of the simulation will contain information about the type of simulation used to obtain cable forces, the name of the simulated environment, and the name of the simulated structure.
In case ruling span was used to obtain forces then the simulation report name will start with |
Section Summary |
The summary with the worst utilizations |