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The geometry needs to be symmetrical
The boundary conditions need to be symmetrical
The loads have to be applied only on a half/quarter/eighth of the part. They will be automatically mirrored and considered through the symmetry planes.
Attention: The loads are only allowed to be applied in the positive coordinate direction (positive coordinate half/quarter/octant)
The displacement constraints are allowed to be applied on a volume/cell that goes beyond the symmetry plane to the other coordinate half/quarter/octant unlike loads
The geometry needs to be located in the global coordinate origin or a local coordinate system has to be created on which the symmetry can relate to
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To activate a symmetry the following commands can be typed into the Advanced User Settings Text Field:
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symmetry.z (X-Y-Plane is symmetry plane)
If the symmetry should relate to a local coordinate system additionally the following command has to typed in into the Advanced User Settings:
symmetry.coordinateSystemBase = Coordinatesystem1
(Coordinatesystem1: Name of the local coordinate system)
The symmetry constraint might not show exactly symmetrical designs while choosing the calculation type “Preview”. This is because of the low resolution level but will not occur once the calculation type is set to “Balanced” or “Fine Tune” and the optimisation runs through.
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