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Recent content by MacEd

  1. MacEd

    Why bother with shell meshing?

    I like this question because it reminds us that the future might be easier than the present. I find shells generally a pain that will hopefully go away one-day, or at least be relegated to special applications which are really pushing the boundaries. I see it as more a question of "is my...
  2. MacEd

    assessing bending moment for design i

    The FEA program should do this for you and may represent it as bending moment per unit length. In that case you would need to integrate it over the width that you want to find the bending moment for. FEA software feature chart http://feacompare.com
  3. MacEd

    Local axis of a node

    You mean axes? Sometimes it's used to determine the directions of displacement constraints and the DOFs used in MPCs. FEA software feature chart http://feacompare.com
  4. MacEd

    Meaning of 3rd keypoint in LARC command

    So LARC cannot make an arc greater than 180 degrees? Just to make sure I got it right, the definition for PC with positive radius could be: "The center of curvature of the arc is on the same side of the line through P1 and P2 as PC." FEA software feature chart http://feacompare.com
  5. MacEd

    Meaning of 3rd keypoint in LARC command

    Thanks Orel, that helps partly but I think it still leaves ambiguity How does it know I don't want the 270 degree arc passing through the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quadrants? In 2D you can say the arc is counter-clockwise from P1 to P2, but it's a 3D arc so there doesn't seem to be any definition of...
  6. MacEd

    Meaning of 3rd keypoint in LARC command

    Hello I don't have access to ANSYS but I want to understand how an arc is defined with LARC. The 3rd keypoint (PC), I assume lies in the plane of the arc, that makes sense. But it also has another function which seems to be to determine which one of the 4 possible arcs of the specified radius...
  7. MacEd

    Angle for a node

    The node itself wouldn't have an angle. Instead, find the angles of the two elements adjacent to it and average them. If the elements are linear then just do some trigonometry (atan2, not atan) on the coordinates of their end nodes to get the angles. FEA software feature chart...
  8. MacEd

    Universal FE format

    I don't have much of an idea how to start building this unfortunately. The structure of the information is so complicated that I suspect that plain old programming might be the simplest way to represent it. Perhaps we could build a library of frequently needed conversion tools for transforming...
  9. MacEd

    Universal FE format

    Something like that would be fantastic. Maybe we just need a rough plan then start coding converters and hone it as problems arise. I'd rather build it up from necessity than trying to allow for every possibility and ending up with something too hard to get your head around. A few things that...
  10. MacEd

    Universal FE format

    XML is a bit out of fashion now. Though I don't quite understand why. Maybe because it gets bloated, maybe because JSON is popular for web programming, or maybe because it's hard to whip up a quick program to read or generate it. Anyone can process CSV files easily with a spreadsheet or the...
  11. MacEd

    Universal FE format

    This high level data about geometry won't be necessary in some of the use cases. Imagine you create a model using an integrated CAD FEA program, with tightly integrated geometry, parts, coordinate systems, material definitions, etc. then each time you solve it, you could put it through the...
  12. MacEd

    Best FEA software

    Perhaps this is a bit obvious but a huge factor in accuracy is the mesh density yet you can't simply control for that to compare software. One may converge faster to a less accurate solution, while another converges more slowly to a more accurate solution. I've seen this happen for different...
  13. MacEd

    Universal FE format

    Perhaps it could be created as an independent program to convert files with. Then there's no need for buy-in from any vendors. If it does need to be incorporated into other software, it should be fairly simple to do, either being programmed in, or a library with a permissive open source license...
  14. MacEd

    Universal FE format

    I had a look at FEMML years ago but it didn't have enough specific details to get anywhere. It was also started in the heyday of XML which can be horribly inefficient for large data sets. I think a project like this needs participation from several FEA vendors, and they're probably all...
  15. MacEd

    Rotation of a floor around 4 walls

    Hello Evy You need a connection that transmits forces but not moments. Depending on the software, "coupling connection" and "hinge connection" both sound like correct ways to do it, with the coupling probably meaning the nodes on the floor are not shared by the walls but instead coupled to them...
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