Creating a Group of Parts That Share Topology

  1. Create a component the default setting is None, which treats multi-body parts as a sub-assembly of independent parts (that is, no sharing).
  2. Set the Share Topology property to Merged, Shared, or Group in the properties panel of the component
  3. Place any solids, surfaces, beams, or components that you want to share topology into this component.

For Ansys 15.0 and later, Shared Topology set to Merged applies to the following cases:

  • Bodies that are touching each other (same as Shared)
  • Surface bodies that are intersecting each other (same as Shared)
  • Volume bodies that are completely inside of other volume bodies. For example Solid A is completely inside of Solid B which is completely inside of Solid C. Solid A will share topology with Solid B and Solid B will share topology with Solid C.
  • Surface bodies that are completely inside of volume bodies. For example Surface A is completely inside of Solid B which is completely inside of Solid C. Surface A will share topology with Solid B and Solid B will share topology with Solid C.
  • Any combination of the above four cases.
  • Not Supported - Cases where volume bodies partially intersect each other or surfaces extending outside of volume bodies.

For Ansys 17.0 and later, Shared Topology set to Group will group all bodies in a component into a multi-body part in ANSYS/Workbench. It does NOT merge or share faces and edges of the bodies with each other.

For legacy databases, the NONE option maps to Group in the latest version.

Beams that are in the same component and have the same properties (such as, Cross Section, Anchor, Material), are transferred to Workbench as follows, when Shared Topology is set to Merge, Share, or Group:

  • Orientations of the connected beams may be different (for example, rotated relative to each other) as long as ALL other cross section properties match.
  • Beams connected end-to-end are one body with multiple edges.
  • Beams that from "T" and "X" intersections are single bodies but the intersections create additional edges in each body. The example below is two bodies with four edges.
  • Connected Beams that intersect themselves are a single body but the intersections create additional edges in the body. The example below is one body with five edges.