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1、Deploying ANSYS models as Enterprise Accessible Software Applications Sebastian Dewhurst Vice-President, Enterprise Applications AEA Technology Engineering Software Inc Omega Centre, Pittsburgh PA Derek Sweeney Managing Director, IDAC Ireland Ltd 18 Windsor Place, Lower Pembroke Street Dublin 2, Ire
2、land, 01 676 3765 Abstract Obtaining more value from an organisations assets and knowledge is on every managers agenda. This paper presents AEA Technologys developments in enabling organisations to capture expert knowledge, simplify the user interface and extract more value from their existing compl
3、ex software in a quality controlled environment. The use of EASA with ANSYS is explained with an example of a medical device application developed by IDAC Ireland Ltd. This application calculates the fatigue life of a medical stent. A stent is a small medical device, which is used to treat coronary
4、and other blood vessel disease. It is deployed inside the diseased artery and acts as scaffolding to ensure free flow of oxygenated blood. EASA has brought benefits to this application by allowing the rapid development of a GUI, web deployment and much easier use of the application by non-ANSYS user
5、s within expert- designed boundaries. Introduction This paper presents AEA Technologys EASA (Enterprise Accessible Software Applications), a software tool that enables organisations to extract more value from their existing software models in a quality controlled environment. It then goes on to desc
6、ribe how ANSYS and EASA have been used together on an important medical application. Applications where Internet / Intranet Deployment of Models is of Value Most technically oriented organisations use high performance generic software such as ANSYS to produce models that represent their products and
7、 applications. Although some of these models may be of general interest to a range of personnel across the organisation, it is likely that each model will only be driven for each solution by the person who originally produced the model. Up to now, if wider application of a model is needed, an organi
8、sation usually has to take one of two routes: 1) Teach more people how to use the native software (e.g. ANSYS) and how to successfully obtain accurate solutions from the models. 2) Commission and produce a tailor made Graphical User Interface for the application, normally using C+, VisualBasic, Java
9、 or, where applicable, using the codes own GUI building tools . These models can be successfully applied with “User Pull” where the potential users see the application being used by the “expert” and develop an appetite to run the models for themselves with their own input data. The easiest models to
10、 share are those that are easy to “parameterise”, as the geometry model, input options and physical properties can be defined across a range where good solutions can be assured. In recent years, AEA Technology has been successful in producing specific “vertical application” products, which, although
11、 based on the CFX fluid dynamics code as the engine, provide the user with a simple user interface into which “engineering level” parameters are entered. This means that the user does not therefore have to know how CFX works to obtain the solutions they require. Examples of these include “ProMixus”
12、and “TankSim”. In producing such applications, AEA Technology started the process of developing tools and techniques for rapidly producing vertical applications, with Graphical User Interfaces, that drive underlying software. AEA Technology developed these tools and ideas further, with the mind shif
13、t that any organisation that uses complex software could be able to develop such vertical applications for themselves. The idea is that web-based applications could be developed by an organization under its own control for additions and revisions. We then had the EASATM concept Enterprise Accessible
14、 Software Applications, which was launched as a software product in October 2001. The EASA Concept EASA provides a complete and generally applicable environment that allows application experts to easily and quickly author “GUI templates“ for popular problems, releasing key parameters to be changed b
15、y other users, who see the version-controlled EASA applications (EASAPS) on the Intranet or Internet using a browser on their computer. EASA will work with any batch-capable software, such as ANSYS. Figure 1 shows a typical tabbed pane from a GUI, with a dynamic diagram that changes its shape and si
16、ze in sympathy with user inputs and user input parameters. Images are defined by the author either by linking the EASA Application (EASAPTM) to a .GIF or .JPG file, or by creating diagrams using the tools provided. Authors can limit the range of allowable inputs either to absolute values or using ex
17、pressions linked to other parameters these appear as “tips” as shown close to the “inlet height” box on Figure 1. Figure 1 - Typical EASA Application or “EASAP” CFD experts might author furnace models, cyclone models and heat exchanger models; structures experts might author I-beam calculations and
18、pressure-vessel calculations; and an environmental specialist might author a generic plume dispersion investigation using an in-house code. The author uses his skill and experience to ensure that the applications operate successfully over a defined parametric range, which is encapsulated into the EA
19、SAP. Non-software-experts can then access EASAPS over the corporate Intranet with a Web browser, saving them the time needed to become experts in the underlying complex applications and saving the expert from having to run different parameters in the generically applicable models. By taking this app
20、roach, EASA allows an organisation to define its own set of vertical applications on the software assets it already owns, capturing expert knowledge in an easily re-usable form and deploying it over the intranet / internet for others to use. EASA also makes it very simple to carry out parametric ana
21、lyses the user simply selects the range across which solutions are required, the EASA server schedules the runs and brings the results back into web-pages which allow the parametric results to be analysed. This type of work can be very time-consuming both to set up and to analyse using traditional m
22、ethods of running the applications. How does EASA work? The EASA software is a Java client-server environment, in which the information needed to run a particular software code is locked into a JAVA applet by the EASAP Author. EASA can drive any batch-capable software and contains the necessary stru
23、ctures to run jobs on different computers (where the software applications are resident), control licensing associated with the specialist software and serve up web-pages to the system users. Figure 2 shows the basic hardware layout users with browsers and a Java run time plug-in, the EASA server an
24、d pre-existing compute servers where the codes to be driven are resident. Figure 2 - Typical EASA installation and application galleries The Java applets are very small files, suitable for rapid internet transfer using standard modem technology, which contain the configuration information for the gr
25、aphical user interface. On selecting an EASAP, the user downloads a copy of the applet to the local PC, enters the parameters as necessary, then submits the run which transfers a configuration file back to the EASA server. The EASA server then selects the computer to carry out the processes which ca
26、n be several in sequence as specified in the EASAP (e.g. Pre-process, Solve, Post Process). The EASA server then carries out the post solution analysis of the output files and posts the results back to the users own results web-pages. The results pages are specified within the EASAP by the Author th
27、ey can contain text, extracted tables from the output files of the underlying application, images or AVI files generated by the application. Therefore this captures the experience of the author in appreciating which information from the applications output files is important to the end-user and how
28、best to present it. Figure 3 provides a simple example of EASA output for an ANSYS Verification Library example. Figure 3 - Example Output Web-Page from EASA How does the Author Set up the EASAP? The authoring tools are a particularly powerful part of the EASA system. EASAP Builder provides a tree s
29、tructure for building the EASAP and publishing it on the Intranet. No knowledge of Java is needed to produce an EASAP. Figure 4 shows an example of an authors tree for a typical EASAP. The tree structure contains four main elements EASAP Properties, User Interface, Processes and Output. Each element
30、 has a set of Essential or Optional Parameters which appear on selection of the element. Full error checking and preview facilities are built in to give the author maximum confidence in building the EASAP. EASA is connected to codes such as ANSYS by setting up the compute server configuration sectio
31、n of ANSYS. This is quick and easy to achieve, since the information needed is the information that the software expert already uses to drive the underlying software in batch. As an example, for ANSYS, the Environment Variables need to be set as follows: set Path=C:WINNTSYSTEM32;“C:Program FilesAnsy
32、s IncANSYSED57binintel“ set ANSYS57_DIR=. With these environment variables set, an EASAP can use ANSYS simply by entering the normal ANSYS output.dat in the EASAP processes section. Figure 4 - EASAP Builder typical screen EASA provides a version control system for the EASAPS allowing them to be deve
33、loped “off line” by an Author, then, when ready, to publish them on the Intranet. Any subsequent versions are then automatically given revision numbers minor or major as selected by the author, see Figure 5. Previous versions of EASAPS can be restored by the system administrator and EASAPS can be au
34、tomatically upgraded to run with the latest version of EASA. Figure 5 - EASAP Configuration Management Using EASA with ANSYS a Medical Application A good example of an EASAP using ANSYS has been produced by Derek Sweeney of IDAC Ireland. This application uses ANSYS to predict the fatigue life a medi
35、cal stent. Stents are small medical devices which are used to treat coronary and other blood vessel disease. They are deployed inside the diseased artery and act as scaffolding to ensure free flow of the oxygenated blood. A good stent design must have appropriate compliance characteristics (it must
36、be easily deployed, but have sufficient radial strength to support the diseased vessel wall), good margin against fatigue, must not exceed ultimate strain during deployment. Depending on the specific application, there will be other requirements, but these are fundamental to most stent designs. Thes
37、e requirements are often conflicting. For example reducing compliance will typically reduce alternating stresses which cause fatigue, but will also tend to increase maximum strains during manufacture, which will result in higher residual stresses. FEA (Finite Element Analysis) provides a time and co
38、st efficient means of assessing multiple designs in an effort to identify the optimum design, which satisfies all requirements. In addition, it is a FDA requirement that FEA be carried out to assess the fatigue life of any stent which has been submitted for approval. This is a complex simulation inv
39、olving intricate geometry and material and contact non-linearities. Such an application would normally be the domain of the Finite Element expert. IDAC Ireland Ltd have developed a vertical application which allows stent designers to carry out complex stent simulations. This has been implemented as
40、an EASA application. All of the data required to run the simulation is extracted painlessly from the designer through the GUI. The stent FE model is automatically built and submitted to ANSYS for solution. Fatigue margins and other structural data are calculated and reported automatically in an html
41、 report (see Figure 5). The EASA software manages the process. Figure 5 - Screen Shots from Medical Stent Application Next Steps EASA has already been developed to use Java 3D, so a near-future release will allow 3D dynamic diagrams in the EASAPS (see Figure 6). Optimisation routines will also be re
42、leased in a future version, to allow the User to specify the required output or constraints, to allow EASA to find the design inputs that correspond to those outputs. Figure 6 - 3D Dynamic Diagram in an EASAP Conclusions Enterprise Accessible Software Applications (EASA) has been developed to help o
43、rganisations simplify the interface to batch-capable software that is difficult or complex to learn and use. The approach used helps capture expert knowledge and present it in a quality controlled and fully web-enabled environment for sharing within and between organisations. The overall objective o
44、f EASA is to allow organizations to obtain more value from their existing software-related assets. Our experience is that this is something that organisations have been wanting to do for years, but it is only now, with the types of IT infrastructures found within modern organisations and the EASA en
45、vironment, that applications such as IDAC Irelands ANSYS stent model can be made generally available over an internet or the internet. The Performance of a Flammable Gas Sensing Pellistor Bead With Respect to the Material Properties of the Support Arms Graeme McRobbie and Fraser Clark University of
46、Paisley, High Street, Paisley, Scotland Chris Tandy Gas Measurement Instruments, Inchinnan Industrial Estate, Renfrewshire, Scotland Abstract The pellistor bead is used for the detection of combustible gases within an oxygen-based atmosphere. In its simplest form a platinum wire coil is encapsulated
47、 within a porous alumina bead which has been doped with a precious metal such as palladium or rhodium and is suspended between two metallic support arms. This paper looks at the performance of this device with respect to the material properties of these support arms. A three-dimensional finite eleme
48、nt model was constructed using ANSYS software. It shows how the efficiency of this device can be improved by careful choice of the materials used for the support arms. In many cases gas sensors employing pellistor beads have to be portable. Any increase in the pellistors efficiency would result in e
49、ither longer battery-lifetime or in the reduced mass of the complete sensing unit. Introduction Catalytic gas sensors, such as the pellistor bead, operate by the catalytic oxidation of combustible gases such as methane (CH4) or hydrogen (H2) and are commonly used towards the prevention of explosive accidents 6. The device that will be investigated in this paper consists of platinum wire coil supported between two cylindrical support arms (Figure 1). The platinum wire itself has a diameter of 12.5 m. The 5-turn coil has a radius