GraphicalSolutionTracking

Introduction
ThistutorialwascompletedusingANSYS7.0ThiswillactasanexplanationofwhattheGraphical
SolutionTrackingplotisacutallydescribing.Anexampleofsuchaplotisshownbelowandwillbe
usedthroughouttheexplanation.

1. TitleandAxisLabels
Thetitleofthegraphisreallyjustthetimevalueofthelastcalculatediteration.Inthis
example,thetimeattheendoftheanalysiswassetto1.Thiscanbechangedwith
theTimecommandbeforetheSolvecommandisissued.Formoreinformationregarding
settingthetimevalue,andmanyothersolutioncontroloption,seeChapter8.5ofthe
StructuralAnalysisGuideintheHelpfile.
ThexaxisislabelledCumulativeIterationNumber.AsANSYSstepsthroughnonlinear
analysis,itusesasolver(NewtonRaphson,etc)thatiteratestofindasolution.Ifthe
problemisrelativelylinear,veryfewiterationswillberequiredandthusthelengthofthe
graphwillbesmall.However,ifthesolutionishighlynonlinear,orisnotconverging,
manyiterationswillberequired.Thelengthofthegraphinthesecasescanbequitelong.
Again,formoreinformationaboutchangingiterationsettings,youcanseeChapter8.5in
thehelpfile.
TheyaxisislabelledAbsoluteConvergenceNorm.Inthecaseofastructuralanalysis,
whichthisgraphistakenfrom,thisabsoluteconvergencenormreferstononnormalized

values(iethereareunitsassociatedwiththesevalues).Someanalysesusenormalized
values.Inrealityitdoesn'treallymatterbecauseitisonlyacomparisonthatisgoingon.
Thisiswhatwillbeexplainednext.
2. CurvesandLegend
Ascanbeguessedfromthelegendlabels,thisgraphrelatestoforcesandmoments.These
valuesaregraphedbecausetheyarethecorrespondingvaluesinthesolutionvectorforthe
DOF'sthatareactiveintheelementsbeingused.Ifthisgraphwerefromathermal
analysis,thecurvesmaybefortemperature.
Foreachparameter,therearetwocurvesplotted.Foreaseofexplanation,wewilllookat
theforcecurves.
TheFCRITcurvereferstotheconvergencecriteriaforcevalue.Thisvalueisequal
totheproductofVALUExTOLER.ThedefaultvalueofVALUEisthesquarerootof
thesumofthesquares(SRSS)oftheappliedloads,orMINREF(whichdefaultsto
0.001),whicheverisgreater.Thisvaluecanbechangedusing
theCNVTOLcommand,whichisdiscussedinthehelpfile.ThevalueofTOLER
defaultsto0.5%forloads.
OnemayinquirewhytheFCRITvalueincreasesasthenumberofiterations
increases.Thisisbecausetheanalysisismadeupofanumberofsubsteps.Inthe
caseofastructuralexample,suchasthis,thesesubstepsarebasicallyportionsofthe
totalloadbeingappliedovertime.Forinstance,a100Nloadbrokenupwith20
substepsmeans20,5Nloadswillbeappliedconsequtivelyuntiltheentire100Nis
applied.Thus,theFCRITvalueatthestartwillbe1/20thofthefinalFCRITvalue.
TheFL2curvereferstotheL2VectorNormoftheforces.TheL2normisthe
SRSSoftheforceimbalancesforallDOF's.Insimplerterms,thisistheSRSSof
thedifferencebetweenthecalculatedinternalforceataparticularDOFandthe
externalforceinthatdirection.
Foreachsubstep,ANSYSiteratesuntiltheFL2valueisbelowtheFCRITvalue.Once
thisoccurs,itisdeemedthesolutioniswithintoleranceofthecorrectsolutionandit
movesontothenextsubstep.Generally,whenthecurvespeakthisisthestartofanew
substep.Ascanbeseeninthegraphabove,apeakfolloweverytimetheL2valuedrops
belowtheCRITvalue,asexpected.