Morten Damsgaard Flecks is one of FRECON’s bright minds, who cannot help but think “there must be a better way to solve this”. Now, Morten has automated some of the time-consuming calculations in ANSYS. This helps streamline the development process and strengthens the competitiveness of both the customer and FRECON.
Design Engineer Morten Damsgaard Flecks has extensive knowledge about programming in ANSYS, which has given him the idea to develop an application for automating calculations. Complex bolted connections, which previously took 2-3 days to calculate, are now solved in just 20 minutes. The application is an important step in increasing both the customer’s and FRECON’s competitiveness.
Workflow optimization and more accurate data
“Repetitive processes in the development work are meant to be automated. Anything else would be a waste of both time and skills and unnecessarily prolongs a development process,” says Morten, who is a truly innovative mind representing the culture and work approach of FRECON.
Morten is currently working as an external consultant for one of FRECON’s large wind turbine customers and is part of a team calculating bolted connections for wind turbines. The work requires repeated transfer of data from ANSYS to Excel, where ongoing calculations of e.g. reaction forces take place. Now, Morten has automated this process by developing an application for ANSYS, which makes calculations on selected connections ready in no time.
“When working with more than 1,000 bolts, it could previously take many, many hours to get out all the data from ANSYS and subsequently do the individual calculations,” says Morten. “At the same time, there was a risk of errors. Now, we have optimized the entire workflow and have the ability to do more – and more accurate – calculations on the individual bolted connections.”
Passionate about nerdy programming in ACT
Morten describes himself as a bit of a programming nerd who enjoys immersing himself in all the possibilities. If something can be done smarter, it should. Ever since his university degree, he has been hooked on working with coding and various programs. This is also the reason why he has thrown himself into Ansys Customization Toolkit (ACT).
“It takes a geek to develop in ACT. Most people still work in old programming languages like APDL in ANSYS,” says Morten. “However, this does not offer the same opportunities at all, which has motivated me to immerse myself in ACT.”
Positive feedback from the customer
Morten’s innovative way of thinking and nerdy mind has given the wind turbine manufacturer a new and very valuable solution, which has already been implemented in the team. Plans have been made to implement the application internally for more people who work with design and calculation.
“I have received a lot of positive feedback on this solution, and there is no doubt that it has already saved a lot of time in our design and calculation process,” says Morten. “At the same time, we have had even better results to work with. It’s great to be able to apply your passion to bring new, valuable opportunities into play for the customer.”