3D Plastic Beam

[ankushaggarwal2]

Hi,
I want to model a 3D elasto-plastic beam and calculate the axial strains. The Beam4 is described as Elastic beam and Beam24 although named as Plastic, is for thin walled beam.

Please help me, which beam I should use. Because, with elasto-plastic properties and Beam4 element, the problem gets solved (but I am not sure, if it uses the defined data table) and I can only get the elastic strain from it (as defined in the element library).

Thanks!

 

[Stringmaker]

BEAM188 or BEAM189

 

[ankushaggarwal2]

Thank you very much!

Just one more thing.
I want to get the axial strains in the beam. It is written as EPELDIR in the output definitions. But, how can I get it, I am not being able to figure out. By using *get or ETABLE or by some GUI, please help me in this.

 

[Stringmaker]

You could just "Query Results" if you're only interested in one or two values. If you wish to write a macro of some sort you will need to use element tables or *get,,etab. I think ETABLE is probably the easier route to go here. Have you ever used element tables? The documentation does a good job explaining them. Read that and I'm sure if you have any specific questions the helpful folks here will be more than happy to assist.

 

[ankushaggarwal2]

In "Query Results", there is no option for axial strain. However, I am able to use ETABLE. Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, I have to use it as

ETABLE,name_of_table,EPEL,DIR

Before, I was thinking that EPELDIR is one (as given in the manual) and was not able to use it.

Thank you very much!