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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
• Moving Load and Influence Analysis, with provision • Automatic attachment of dissimilar meshes, such as
for major codes such as AS5100, BS5400, AASHTO assemblies from CAD.
LRFD and EN1992-2003. • Many additional post-processing functions such as
• Construction Sequence Simulation, which allows for user-defined contours, deviatoric and mean stresses,
the addition, removal and re-addition of elements at SRSS and CQC combinations on all result types,
any stage of the analysis, taking full account of graphs in cylindrical systems and cutting planes.
equilibrium changes as elements are added/removed, • Concrete reinforcement post-processing on plate/shell
with full support for material, geometric and contact elements, including Wood-Armer moments and
nonlinearity. allowance for membrane forces.
• Creep of metallic and non-metallic materials, • Element Node Force results for facilitating the display
including concrete creep and shrinkage to most of free-body-diagrams on any section or subsection of
national codes such as ACI and CEB-FIP. a model.
• A new Quasi-Static solver that can be used to solve • Many new productivity enhancing features, such as
problems in the time domain, while ignoring inertia the ability to solve for multiple linear static freedom
effects (e.g. creep problems). cases in the one run and store all the results in the
• Modified Cam-Clay material model for modelling 2D same result file.
and 3D nonlinear drained and undrained soils.
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
• Enhanced configuration options that allow you to set The frame is 10m long by 5 m wide and has a maximum
your own default values for virtually every option, and height of 6m. The members are structural steel I beams,
the ability to easily return to the factory defaults. with dimensions of 200mm×200mm×10mm.
• Significantly expanded API functionality, with over Two load patches are placed on the roof of the shed to
900 new functions, including very powerful functions allow a pressure load to be applied to all the beams. This
that allow you to incorporate the Strand7 model means that only the stiffness of the frame is considered
window directly inside your own application. and that any stiffness provided by cladding, etc, is
ignored.
• Plus many more…
A vertical pressure of Y = -5kPa is assigned to each of the
load patch plates.
R2.4 Nonlinear Solver • Solve the model using the Linear Static solver,
ensuring that Node Reactions are calculated.
Nonlinear Beam
In previous releases of Strand7, modelling of nonlinear Figure 2.2: Displacement of frame under vertical pressure load.
material beams was achieved by assigning an axial stress
vs strain table and/or moment vs curvature tables in the • Using the peek tool, find the vertical reaction at the
two principal axes. For these analyses the axial stress vs base of the legs.
strain and moment vs curvature were not coupled.
You may have noticed that when the results were
While this is still available, R2.4 offers a beam element displayed for the frame the patch plates were no longer
that simply requires the material stress-strain table and visible. This is because of settings in the new
cross-section definition, and Strand7 handles the rest. The Results/Options. Here you can control how some
interaction between axial and bending is automatically elements are shown during post-processing: e.g.
accommodated. show/hide patch plates, hide inactive contact elements,
The following tutorial uses a pushover analysis on a shed hide inactive construction sequence elements or show
frame to explain the different settings and their influence them as wireframe, etc.
on a nonlinear material beam analysis.
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
• Create a second load case in the model called • Select the Nonlinear tab.
Horizontal Load.
• Select Elastic-Plastic from the Material dropdown
• Select the four nodes at the top of the columns and and Isotropic from the Hardening dropdown.
apply a horizontal load equal to the vertical reaction,
• Select the stress vs strain table from the Stress vs
i.e. X = 72886.9N.
Strain dropdown.
If instead you wish to perform an uncoupled nonlinear
material analysis, e.g. you wish to assign a specific
moment vs curvature table to one of the principal axes
you can do so by setting Use Moment vs Curvature
Tables. This will activate the axial stress vs strain table
option as well the moment vs curvature options in both
principal axis directions and effectively sets the beam to
behave as in previous Strand7 releases.
0.0 0
0.0015 300
Figure 2.6: Beam property, Nonlinear tab.
0.0022 350
• Select the Section tab (Figure 2.7).
0.006 350 Integration Points may be set between 4 and 10. This
defines the number of points along the length of the beam
where the bending stiffness is fully integrated from the
stress-strain relationship over the cross section. By default
the setting is 5 and this should be sufficient for the
majority of analyses.
Figure 2.5: Steel stress vs strain table. Figure 2.7: Beam property, section tab.
• Choose Property/Beam.
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
• From the Geometry tab select Discretisation • Select the Results tab and ensure Beam Fibre Stress
(Nonlinear) (Figure 2.8). is calculated.
• Click Solve.
• Open the results and create a graph Vs Result Case
and name this Lateral Displacement.
• Plot a graph of nodal DX displacement.
• The Position selected should be the node at the top of
one column, relative to the node at the top of another
column. These two nodes should be on columns with
the same Z and Y coordinates.
• The X axis should be vs the Horizontal Load applied
to the structure (Figure 2.9).
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
Figure 2.12: Peek tool showing beam fibre stress in the yielded beam.
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
solution converges or the Minimum Reduction Factor is sub-stepping procedure is useful for buckling and post
reached, before increasing it again towards the value buckling analysis.
requested by the user.
The procedure searches along the equilibrium path
Load Scaling can be triggered by one of the following, allowing total movement, in any increment, up to a
specified amount; this amount is the nominal arc length
• The solution does not converge in the set number of
value. The Maximum Rotation Increment and the
iterations.
Maximum Displacement Increment (Ratio) settings
• The matrix is singular. directly control the nominal arc length value, which is
calculated as a type of norm of the displacement vector.
• The Maximum Rotation Increment or Maximum Arc length sub-incrementation is then triggered when the
Displacement Increment are exceeded. displacement/rotation increment generates an
Displacement Scaling instantaneous arc length value that exceeds the nominal
arc length value.
Displacement scaling is similar to load scaling except
when this is triggered, instead of scaling the externally In a single degree of freedom system, for example, a
applied loads, the initially calculated displacements are single spring along the X axis being extended, it is easy to
scaled. The solver scales back the calculated visualise the nominal arc length: in this case it is simply
displacements when determining the internal state of the X displacement of the end of the spring. The arc
stress and updated model stiffness. This allows the length procedure therefore scales the effective load on the
structure to develop the necessary stiffness and stability spring such that each increment produces an X
(e.g. due to membrane loads) to eventually equilibrate displacement no bigger than the nominated arc length. In
with the externally applied loads. The displacement is a general case, it is not trivial to determine which degree
scaled such that at any iteration it is no larger than the of freedom is controlling the response (it can change as
Maximum Rotation Increment or the Maximum the structure is loaded and deforms), therefore the
Displacement Increment. nominal arc length is calculated based on the complete
displacement increment vector.
As mentioned above, the Maximum Rotation Increment
Did you Know? and the Maximum Displacement Increment (Ratio)
control the nominal arc length. The rotation is simply a
Nonlinear Convergence Graph nodal rotation, whereas the displacement increment,
Convergence of the nonlinear solvers is being a ratio, is converted to an actual displacement value
based on the displacement and force norms by multiplying the ratio by the largest dimension of the
for the model for each iteration. Within R2.4
model, parallel to the global axes. The nominal arc
you can now click in the solver panel to length is then the norm of the displacement vector scaled
display a graph of the displacement and force such that the maximum nodal rotation component
norms for each iteration. increment equals the Maximum Rotation Increment, or
This means that it is easier to track the path the maximum displacement component increment equals
of convergence of the model. the Maximum Displacement Increment, whichever occurs
first.
Sub-Incrementation – Example 1
This first sub-incrementation example will look at a cable
net structure. The structure is 30m long and 10m high. It
consists of relatively stiff I beams on the sides and top and
very flexible circular solid sections forming the cables.
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
Both Fig 3.1 and 3.2 have the freedom case factors set to
zero. In this case both freedom cases include only fully
Figure 3.1: Nonlinear load increment table with two increments.
fixed restraints. This means that regardless of the factor
assigned to the freedom case the restraint will remain
For example, Figure 3.1 shows Increment 1 as applying a fixed: 0 × fully fixed = 1 × fully fixed. The factor assigned
factor of 1.3 to X = 130N (load case 1). This means that to a freedom case in the increment table only becomes
for this increment 1.3 × (X=130N) is applied giving a important when either an enforced displacement or shrink
total applied load of X=169N. In Increment 2, the factors link is present in a model.
are 1.0 for X = 130N (LC1) and 1.0 to Y = 25N (LC2).
This means that the load applied to the structure would be
a combination of X = 130N and Y = 25N at the same
time. This type of nonlinear load increment table is
common for modeling different load combinations within
the nonlinear solver.
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
3.8 with the resulting nonlinear load increment table More details on staged construction sequence will be
shown in Fig 3.9. covered in a future issue of News.st7, or for further
information see Strand7 R24 Book.pdf.
Other Options
Two other buttons have been introduced to the nonlinear
load increment table that will improve efficiency.
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
• Rigid
Did you Know?
Background Image
A background image can be added to your Strand7
model window to allow you to include your
company logo or perhaps a theme that matches
your structure to “jazz up” the presentation of your
model to your client.
2.0m
1.25m
Figure 4.2: Rigid attachment.
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
The geometry consists of two links, a shaft and a bearing Figure 4.8 shows the automatic creation of the attachment
block. Loads and restraints are assigned directly to the links in the model. For rigid attachments, rigid links are
geometry; fixed restraints at the base of the bearing block created, while for flexible attachments, beam elements are
and inside the small hole of one of the links, and a created. For this example, the beam elements are set to
pressure load normal to a link side. We can also assign normal point contacts.
the attachment attribute directly to the geometry. As the
connection between the shaft and the links is to be a
welded connection, a rigid connection for the attachment Welded
connection Sliding
is assigned here. For the connection between the shaft connection
and bearing block we need to simulate a sliding
connection and so this is assigned as flexible.
Figure 4.7: Section of incompatible mesh in assembly. Figure 4.9: Theta displacement of the assembly.
Fig 4.7 shows the assembly after it has been solid Solving the model in the nonlinear solver produces the
meshed. It can easily be seen that there are areas of mesh theta displacement shown in figure 4.9. This shows that
incompatibility. the displacement across the incompatible meshes is
continuous, as would occur in a welded joint. At the
interface between the shaft and the bearing block, the
theta displacement is not continuous as the shaft is free to
rotate relative to the bearing block
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Making Finite Element Analysis Easier
S trand7 participated in a number of exhibitions and 1–4 April 2009 NASCC Booth 728 Phoenix, USA
conferences in 2008, in the USA, the UK and Korea. 4-7 May 2009 OTC Booth 8377 Houston, USA
Head Office
Strand7 Pty Ltd
Suite 1, Level 5
65 York Street
Sydney NSW 2000
AUSTRALIA
Tel +61 2 9264 2977
Fax +61 2 9264 2066
Email info@strand7.com
Figure 5.1: SNAME exhibition October 2008 – USA. Web www.strand7.com
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