Creating Cartesian Coordinate System In ANSYS® Mechanical(Illustrated Expression)

Coordinate systems are very important parameters to define boundary conditions in various analyses in ANSYS® Mechanical. So the definition of different coordinate systems out of Global Coordinate System is a very useful tool in ANSYS® Mechanical. In this article, we will show how to create or define a cartesian coordinate system in ANSYS® Mechanical.

How To Create A Cartesian Coordinate System In ANSYS® Mechanical?

To create a cartesian coordinate system in ANSYS® Mechanical, right-click on the ‘Coordinate Systems’ tab as shown by the green arrow above then hover your mouse on the ‘Insert’ tab and click on ‘Coordinate System’ as shown in the green box above.

Select where do you want to define your new cartesian coordinate system as shown in the green box above. Then click the ‘Apply’ button as shown by the green arrow.

In the ‘Principal Axis’ section, select the principal axis such as X, Y, or Z from the pop-up menu. The selected principal axis will be defined according to the selected Global axis that you can select as Global X-Axis, Global Y-Axis, or Global Z-Axis.

As you can see that we selected Y as the principal axis, then the Global X-axis. The principal Y-axis is oriented in the same direction as Global X-axis as shown by red and green arrows above. The logic is like that.

The logic above is also applied in this section. We selected the Z-axis in ‘Orientation Baout Principal Axis’, and selected the ‘Define By’ as Global Y-Axis. The orientation of the Z-axis of our new cartesian coordinate system has the same orientatiın as the Y-axis of the Global Coordinate System in ANSYS® Mechanical.

Also, you can select geometric figures as above to define the new cartesian coordinate system’s axis orientations. For example, we selected ‘Define By’ as Geometry Selection, then selected the edge that shown by the green arrow for orientation of the Y-axis as shown by the red arrow above in ANSYS® Mechanical.

Conclusion

So the definition of cartesian coordinate systems is very basic in ANSYS® Mechanical.

Do not forget to leave your comments and questions below about the definition of cartesian coordinate systems in ANSYS® Mechanical.

NOTE: All the screenshots and images are used in education and informative purposes. Images used courtesy of ANSYS, Inc.