how do I simulate the wire in a way that will allow me to do an Ansys simulation?

[CJ_10628692]

Using CREO Parametric 7.0 I am trying to create a forklift mechanism. In the picture, the bottom of the red screw will be attached to a motor that is mounted to the same plate that the bottoms of the tan channels are. As the motor screws upward, it will lift up the grey section. There will be two cables attached to the tan bar running between the two channels. Those cable will then run over the grey bar and back down to the tan hooks. This means that the brown frame will be lifted as the screw lifts the grey frame. My question is, how do I simulate this wire in a way that will allow me to do an Ansys simulation of the forces when the lift is fully extended? I can also use CREO simulate if necessary.

[tbraxton]

If you have not created a free body diagram of the loads and members of the structure in the load path, I would start there. Post the diagram here with a more specific question about how to set up the BC for simulation and you will be more likely to get some advice.

[SweetPeasHub]

You can substitute forces for the cables in your simulations. The forces are determined through a FBD, with static hand calculations. The mass of the brown and grey carriers plus the fork weight and load are taken by the two cables. The pulleys at the grey bar will see double this force because the same force is going down to the yellow bar. The force on the cable does not change with height because the vertical load is the same.and the cables can only take pure tension. The offset of the load center when out on the forks is important to this model. Even if you are not confident with FBD please make a good stab at it and maybe someone can help with refining that as well. There are also many internet examples and videos on free body diagrams for cables, etc, and your cable setup is a common one. There are FEA tools to simulate cables in some FEA codes but I would only do that after other methods and only if there was a good reason like the dynamics, etc.

Also, I do not see much Ansys discussion here, so you may want to look at a different place for that.