×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

How to model beam elements with different thicknesses

How to model beam elements with different thicknesses

How to model beam elements with different thicknesses

(OP)
Hello, I have a system that I want to model as 2D beam elements.

I already tried to model it, but I found out I can only specify one thickness for all the elements of "beam" type. The problem is that each element in my system has a different thickness.

So, how can I resolve this issue ? Do I have to create N beam elements and for each type specify a different thickness ? This would become very messy and subject to errors as the number of elements increases.

Thank you for any advice you can offer.

RE: How to model beam elements with different thicknesses

Hello,

Specifying data for each element will be necessary. Now it depends on you, how much effort you will have do do just that. Depending on your geometry topology, you could write an APDL code to make the job much easier.

For example, if you know how the cross section varies along with the location (x,y) then first mesh all lines with same beam elements, then run a do loop and change the properties of elements according to their location. To do that see the help on (*DO), (EMODIF) and (*DIM,,TABLE).

Regards
Alex

RE: How to model beam elements with different thicknesses

(OP)
Thank you for your help.

I had no idea I could write code with ANSYS.

I will give it a try.

Thanks again.

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources