How to draw a valid helical antenna in HFSS?

Hi Everyone,

Could anyone tell me how I can draw a valid helical antenna in HFSS since I always encouter the problem of invalid design??

Best regards,
Kenneth

Could you tell me more details?

Zhongji

I encounter the error message like this:

Fail to make edge spiral. Acis Error 7073 - The start of the spiral is specified on the normal axis, use a zero start radius to accomplish.
Geometry creation has been aborted, due to failure of a geometry operation.

HFSS online help will show you how you can do that.
Drawing a Helix
A helix is a 3D spiral object created by sweeping a 1D or 2D object along a vector. Sweeping a 1D object results in a hollow 3D object. Sweeping a 2D sheet object results in a 3D solid object.

1. Select the 1D or 2D object you want to sweep to form a helix.



2. On the Draw menu, click Helix .

3. Draw the vector you want to sweep the object along. The two points which describe the vector affect axis direction only and not the helix length. The helix length is determined by entry of the pitch and number of turns.

a. Select the start point by clicking the point or typing its coordinates in the X, Y, and Z text boxes.

b. Select the endpoint by clicking the point or typing its coordinates relative to the start point in the dX, dY, and dZ boxes.

The Helix dialog box appears.

4. Select Right hand if the turn direction is clockwise and Left hand if the turn direction is counter-clockwise.

5. In the Pitch text box, type the distance between each turn in the helix, and click a unit in the pull-down list.

6. In the Turns text box, type the number of complete revolutions the object will make along the vector.

The selected object is swept along the vector to form a helix. The original object you swept is deleted.

The Properties dialog box appears, enabling you to modify the object?s properties.

7. Click OK.

I tried drawing the helix but the object when selected and trying to draw the helix, the helix option is passive and not working could you please help me to sort this issue

There should be an example of a helical antenna in most HFSS installations.

File -> Open Examples -> Antennas -> helical_antenna.hfss

Check your model against this example.