Electrostatic analysis¶

This example shows you how to conduct a 3D electrostatic analysis for a unibody part.

Specifying analysis¶

In the Properties View of the FEM Project object, you set the Physics Type property to Electromagnetic and Analysis Type to Electrostatic. An Electro-Static analysis is defined as shown in Figure below.

Preparing geometry¶

Next, you can import the geometry file “h_section_unibody.step” by clicking the Import... command from the Toolbar or Geometry Menu. The imported geometry and material property are shown in Figure below.

Setting mesh¶

To obtain a fine mesh for the analysis, you set the Mesh Settings properties Quadratic to True, and Maximum Size to 3e-3.

Clicking the Mesh command from the Toolbar or FEM Menu, you can mesh the geometries. There are 34,764 nodes, and 20,657 Tet10 elements generated as shown in Figure below.

Imposing conditions¶

Next, you impose two boundary conditions, a Ground, and Voltage by clicking the corresponding commands from the Toolbar and Electromagnetic Menu. In the Properties View of the Ground object, holding the Ctrl or Shift key and select left bottom and right top surfaces for the Geometry property, as shown in Figure below.

In the Properties View of Voltage object, set the Voltage value to 5, and scope surfaces for the Geometry property, as shown in Figure below.

Solving the model¶

To solve the model, you can click the Compute command from the Toolbar, FEM Menu, or right-click on the Answers object and select Compute command from context menu. Depending on the complexity of the model, the solving process can be completed in seconds to hours. The Output window displays the solver messages and indicates the status of the solving process. As shown in Figure [fig:ch2_start_ex1_output_solver], this model is solved successfully.

Evaluating results¶

To evaluate the deformation of the structure, you can add a Voltage object to the tree by clicking the Voltage item from the Toolbar, Electromagnetic Menu. Next, double-clicking the result object or clicking the Evaluate item from the Toolbar or FEM Menu, you display the contour in the Graphics window as shown in Figure below.

Adding an electric field result object is similar. Clicking the Electric Field result from Toolbar or Electromagnetic Menu, you insert a Electric Field result object to the tree. Evaluating the default Total Electric Field Type, you obtain the magnitude of the electric field vector contour on the body in the Graphics window. The Maximum and Minimum values of field data are displayed in the Properties View window as shown in Figure below.