Loose ball in rotating box

[LyleHardin]

We do not have Mechanical Simulation (yet), but have a potential job for it.

Will it simulate a few loose balls in a rotating vessel such as a box or a wheel with vanes in it?

Will it obey centripetal forces? Will the balls 'stick' to the outer boundaries of the vessel if it is rotating fast enough?

I've been able to simulate such things with 3DS Max using MASSFX with great visual results, but question the authenticity of MAX. Also, MAX won't give reports on forces or strains and such.

Thanks,

Lyle

[AstroJohnPE · Accepted solution]

Hi Lyle,

You should be able to do that with Simulation Mechanical. The analysis type is Mechanical Event Simulation (MES).

I am not familiar with 3Ds Max (and not able to view the website from work), but I suspect that it is more of a visualization tool. It might use the mass of the objects but probably treats each part as a "single" object". Keep in mind that Simulation Mechanical is a finite element analysis, meaning that each part is treated as thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of connected items (elements). The contact between 1 ball and the wheel with vanes will generate many more elements. So I'm sure the MES analysis will take much longer to create. But as you point out, you will know the stress, displacement, and contact forces throughout the model. (Once you get into the analysis, we can go into more specifics.)

[LyleHardin]

Thanks for the info. Autodesk claims 3Ds MAX physics is "A close approximation" and they do not gaurantee the results are real. It's a shame, because I can develop a physics scene and animation in about an hour that looks really good.

We do have Inventor Professional, so we'll probably test Inventor with this. So, I then have to ask, how close will Inventor Professional come to an actual simulation?  What order of magnitude is Simulation Mechanical over Inventor Professional? 

We also have a true DEM (Discrete Element Modeling) program. We may give that a whirl too.

My reseller told me we may be able to 'rent' Simulation Mechanical on a monthly basis but I've not found anything about that.

Thanks again.