Mathcad 14 - Ansys Workbench 11.0 SP1
This integration is a non-supported demo of the 2 products working together. The two
products combine for a best of breed solution for customers. Mathcad runs inside of
Ansys Workbench (AWB), providing natural math notation and optimization of
parameters, with bi-directional communication with AWB’s Parameter Manager.
Use Case Scenarios
Mathcad can be used as a scratch pad calculation for Ansys customers in many ways.
A typical use case is using Mathcad as a quick sanity check. Analysis results from Ansys
can be sent to Mathcad to be compared with quicker, less computationally intense
algorithms.
Mathcad does not compete with Ansys in FEA, Mathcad does not do any meshing for
example. But given simple volumetric information, Mathcad can conduct
a myriad of stress/straining calculations, such as those from Roark’s Handbook for Stress
& Strain. Again, giving the end user a quick sanity check of their results.
Mathcad can also be used to check to see if the resulting analysis of Ansys is within
safety constraints put forth by either the users’ best practices or maybe design constraints.
Ad-hoc calculations such as computing the cost of the part all the way through to
optimizing input parameters for rerunning the analysis are all available to the end user
through Mathcad’s easy to use whiteboard interface.
Installation of Mathcad-Ansys demo
The demo starts with the connector rod CAD part. The part is provided as a ProE and as a
SW part. The Ansys Input Geometry String filter is set to bring in only strings beginning
with “DS”.
Two files needs to be edited and updated to represent where you have installed the demo.
MC.CONFIG is a file at the top level of the demo and simply contains the name of the
Mathcad worksheet you wish to load.
Ie.
C:\jsheehan\solutions\Ansys\ansys_tierod.xmcd
MATHCAD.REG is a file in the Application Directory. The InstallDIR and LibPath
variables need to be updated. Please make note of the double backslashes.
Here is what mine looks like :
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ANSYS,
Inc.\v110\APFramework\Addins\Mathcad]
"BaseWinId"=dword:4a310b47
"InstallDir"="C:\\jsheehan\\solutions\\Ansys\\phase2\\Mathcad\\"
"LibPath"="C:\\jsheehan\\solutions\\Ansys\\phase2\\Mathcad\\MathcadU.dl
l"
"Location"="SDKDLL.AppService.110"
"Type"="progid"
"UsesSDK"="1"
After updating this script it needs to be run by double clicking on it.
When the Mathcad Applet is selected from the Project Page of AWB 11, it looks in the
registry for information about the DLL (Install Dir and LibPath). It then reads the
MC.CONFIG file and locates the Mathcad worksheet you have specified.
The Mathcad worksheet needs to be pre-treated. We edit the properties of regions we
want to show up in the drop down lists for transfer between the 2 products. Mathcad
worksheets can have thousands of regions and we do not want a drop down list to have
thousands of entries. So we add a TAG to any region we want to use in the integration,
Actually either one of two tags : Ansys2MC or MC2Ansys.
Before running the integration demo, pre-treat your worksheet by right mouse clicking on
any math region you want to be used in the integration and add one of the TAGs
depending on which direction you want the number to travel.