Module 4

Working with Elements

4. Working with Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Most preprocessing geometry creation, meshing, and even
loading is usually done with the help of solid modeling
entities.
All postprocessing is done at the node and element level, a
majority of it with nodal quantities.
But there are several situations where you may need to work
directly with elements:
Special types of surface loads, such as a pressure that is not
normal to the surface
Postprocessing of beams and element-specific data
Composite (layered) elements
Link and combination elements such as spars, springs, and
convection links

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-2
...Working with Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

In this chapter, we will present the following element-specific
topics:
A. Element Coordinate System
B. Surface Effect Elements
C. Element Table
D. Workshop

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-3
Working with Elements
A. Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Every element in a model has an element coordinate system
associated with it.
Its purpose is to orient the following quantities:
orthotropic material properties (EX, KXX, etc.)
strains and stresses calculated during solution (EPX, SX, SY,
etc.)

Just like MAT (material), TYPE (element type), and REAL (real
constant set), the element c.s. is a fourth element attribute
called ESYS.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-4
Working with Elements
...Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

The default ESYS orientation depends on J
the element type. For example: I
Line elements are generally oriented with X
element X from node I to node J.
L
Shells usually default to:
element X from node I to node J
Z Y K
element Y perpendicular to element X I X
in the plane of the element
J
element Z normal to X-Y by right-hand
rule O
P M N
Solids default to global Cartesian.
Y

Z X
Yg
K
I
Zg Xg J
October 30, 2001
Inventory #001571
4-5
Working with Elements
...Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

The default ESYS is sufficient for most cases, but there are a
few situations where you might need to change it. Example:
The material property direction of a solid element, representing
fiberglass for example, may not be parallel to global Cartesian.
To orient tangential pressures applied on surface effect
elements.

Yg

Zg Xg

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-6
Working with Elements
...Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

To change the default ESYS, you need to align it with a
specified local coordinate system (CSYS 11 or greater).
The procedure is as follows:
1. Define a local coordinate system with the appropriate
orientation.
Location is generally arbitrary.
Utility Menu > WorkPlane > Local Coordinate Systems > Create
Local CS

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-7
Working with Elements
...Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

2. Select the desired elements.
3. Modify the ESYS attribute of all selected elements to the local
system number defined in step 1.
Preprocessor > -Modeling- Move/Modify > -Elements- Modify Attrib
Or EMODIF command (e.g, emodif,all,esys,11)
4. Reactivate all elements and switch back to previous coordinate
system (CSYS).

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-8
Working with Elements
...Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Shell Element Normals
A related issue is the normal orientation of shell elements.
Defines the top and bottom faces.
Determined by the node order (I-J-K-L) in which the element is
defined, which in turn is determined by the underlying area.

Sometimes you may need to "flip"

the normal direction of some
elements to match the rest of the
model.
Element plot in Powergraphics
mode uses different colors for the
top and bottom faces.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-9
Working with Elements
...Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Two ways to flip shell element normals:
Reverse the underlying area
Or reverse the elements themselves

To reverse the underlying area:

Preprocessor > -Modeling- Move/Modify > -Areas- Area Normals
Then pick the area with the "correct" orientation. ANSYS will
scan all areas and reverse those that don't match the correct
one. The attached elements are also reversed (by default).

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-10
Working with Elements
...Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

To reverse the shell elements directly:
Preprocessor > -Modeling- Move/Modify > -Elements- Shell Normals
Or issue ENORM,P
Then pick an element with the "correct" orientation

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-11
Working with Elements
...Element Coordinate System Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Demo:
Enter PREP7 and resume pipe.db (shell mesh of an IGES model;
note that some shells are reversed)
Move/Modify > Shell Normals (or issue ENORM,P)
pick one of the purple elements
Replot elements and note the correct orientation

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-12
Working with Elements
B. Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

How would you apply a pressure load that is:
tangential to the surface, such as a shear load?
spatially varying over the surface, such as a bolt load?
oriented at an angle to the surface, such as ice load on a
rooftop?

Surface effect elements provide an effective way to do this.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-13
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Characteristics:
They overlay the surface of an underlying mesh like a skin.
They act as a conduit for surface loads.
Creating them is very easy:
Select nodes on the surface of interest.
Activate the appropriate element type
Issue ESURF (or Preprocessor > Create > Elements > Surf Effect > ...).
Select all nodes.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-14
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Available for both 2-D and 3-D models:
SURF151 & 153 are line elements (thermal and structural) meant
for edges of 2-D models.
SURF152 & 154 are area elements (thermal and structural) meant
for surfaces of 3-D models.

We will discuss only SURF154 in this section, but you can

apply the same concepts to the other elements.

SURF154 as depicted in
the Elements Reference
manual

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-15
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

SURF154 uses different element face numbers to accept
different types of loads.
The face number is a field in the "Apply PRES on elems"
dialog (Solution > -Loads- Apply > Pressures > On Elements), as
shown below.
Or the LKEY field on the SFE command:
SFE, ELEM, LKEY, PRES, , VAL1, VAL2, VAL3, VAL4

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-16
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Suppose you apply a pressure of magnitude 1000 on a set of
SURF154 elements. Its orientation depends on which
element face is used.
Face 1:
Normal pressure.
Positive value acts into the element (along element -Z).
Example: sfe,all,1,pres,,1000 (after selecting desired elements).

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-17
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Faces 2 & 3:
Tangential pressures, along element X & Y respectively.
Example:
sfe,eflat,3,pres,,1000
sfe,eslope,2,pres,,1000
(eflat and eslope are components made of elements)

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-18
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Face 4:
Normal pressure, tapered. Magnitude = P1 + XgP2 + YgP3 + ZgP4
P1-P4 are specified VAL1-VAL4 on SFE command.
Xg,Yg, Zg are the global Cartesian locations of the element's
integration points.
P2,P3,P4 are the slopes in global X,Y,Z respectively and default
to P1 if left blank.
Positive value acts into the element (along element -Z).

P2

P1

Xg=0 Xg
October 30, 2001
Inventory #001571
4-19
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Face 4 (cont'd):
For example, to apply a tapered pressure of 200 to 1000 in the
global X direction, with X values ranging from -2 to +2:
Slope P2 = (1000-200)/4 = 200; P3 = 0; P4 = 0
P1 is the value at Xg=0, calculated as P1 = 2(200) + 200 = 600
sfe,eflat,4,pres,,600,200,0,0

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-20
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Face 5
Vector-oriented pressure of magnitude P1.
P2 Xg P3 Yg P4 Zg
Direction =
P22 P32 P42

P2,P3,P4 now represent the direction cosines of the vector and

have no effect on the magnitude.
Example: sfe,eflat,5,pres,,1000,-1,-1,0 defines a pressure at angle
of 45 in the X-Y plane.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-21
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Face 5 (cont'd):
The magnitude of vector-oriented pressure also depends on
KEYOPT(11).
KEYOPT(11)=0 (default) and 1 applies pressure on the projected
area of surface elements.
Useful for bolt loading (or pin loading).
Example: sfe,ecurv,5,pres,,1000,0,-1,0 defines a bolt load on
the curved surface, as shown by a POST1 contour plot below.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-22
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

KEYOPT(11)=2 applies pressure on the full area.
Useful for inclined surfaces (such as a roof top) or wind
loads.
Example: sfe,eslope,5,pres,,1000,0,-1,0 defines uniform, full
pressure on all faces of an inclined surface, as shown below.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-23
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Other applications of surface effect elements:
Torque loading of solid elements
Apply tangential pressure with the help of a modified element
coordinate system.
Useful for shafts and bolts
The thermal versions (SURF151 & 152) have many capabilities,
including:
Heat and mass transfer to 1-D pipe element FLUID116
Easy calculation of heat loss (or gain) across a surface
Radiation

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-24
Working with Elements
...Surface Effect Elements Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Demo:
Enter PREP7 and resume boltload.db
Add SURF154 as element type 1 (show options)
Select bottom area of hole and nodes attached to it
Activate TYPE 1 and issue ESURF to create surface elements
Select everything and plot elements
Select TYPE 1 elements and apply pressure on face 5:
value= 1000, val2= 0, val3= -1, val4= 0
Select everything, save db, and solve
Plot and/or animate SY stresses in POST1
Stay in POST1 (for next demo)

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-25
Working with Elements
C. Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

The element table, available in POST1 (the general
postprocessor), serves two functions:
Performing arithmetic operations among results data
Accessing results data that are not directly available (such as for
certain line elements)

It works somewhat like a spreadsheet:

Each row represents an element
Each column consists of data for the elements

Element No. Item 1 Item 2 Item 3

1
2
3

October 30, 2001
Inventory #001571
4-26
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

A typical element table session consists of the following
steps:
First select the desired elements
Load results data into the table
List or plot the data
Perform desired arithmetic operations

Element table functions are located in the GUI under General

Postproc > Element Table.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-27
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Select the desired elements
In most cases, you only need to use the element table for a
subset of the elements in the model.
Therefore, the first step is to select the desired elements:
by attributes (MAT, TYPE, REAL, or ESYS)
by their nodes
by attached solid modeling entities
by results
etc.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-28
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Loading results data into the table
Identify the data item you want to load and assign a name (label)
to it. The label is used for listings, plots, and operations.
Use the ETABLE command (e.g, etable,evolume,volu)
Or Element Table > Define Table

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-29
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Some types of data can only be identified by sequence numbers,
which are documented in the Elements Reference manual.
For example, the effective pressure on face 5 of a SURF154
element is stored as sequence number SMISC 17.
To load it into the element table: etable,p5,smisc,17
Refer to your Basic Analysis Procedures Guide (available on-
line) for details of the sequence number method.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-30
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Listing or plotting element table data
Element Table > List Elem Table (or PRETAB command)

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-31
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Element Table > Plot Elem Table (or PLETAB,name)

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-32
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

The default is to not average the data at the nodes, i.e, there is
one color per element. To get a smooth contour plot, activate
the averaging key.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-33
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Note that there is only one value per element for each of the data
items: the average or effective value for that element.
For example, if you load nodal displacements UX, the average
UX of the elements nodes is stored per element.
Other ways to review element table data:
You can map the data onto a path and obtain a path plot or
listing.
You can load three scalar quantities (such as element X-
pressure, Y-pressure, and Z-pressure) and combine them to
obtain a vector plot.
See the PLVECT command for details.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-34
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Performing operations
Somewhat like a spreadsheet, you can do
arithmetic operations among the element
table columns.
Many operations are available:
Add two columns (SADD)
Multiply (SMULT)
Compare and store the maximum or
minimum of two columns (SMAX or SMIN)
Sum each column (SSUM useful for
calculating the total volume of the
selected set of elements
Etc.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-35
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Example:

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-36
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

If a desired operation is not available, you can upload an
element table item to an array parameter and use array
operations.
Use the *VGET command (or Utility Menu > Parameters > Get
Array Data)
Then use one of the array operations: *VOPER, *VSCFUN,
etc.
For example, statistical measures such as mean and
standard deviation cannot be calculated at the element table
level, but are available for array parameters.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-37
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Updating the Table
If you read in results for a different load step or from a
different results file, the element table is not automatically
updated.
Issue ETABLE,REFL (or click the
Update button in the Element
Table Data dialog) to refill or
update the table.
The column header identifies
items as current or previous
depending on the status of the
data items.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-38
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Since there is no automatic update of the element table, you
can easily compare the results between two load steps or two
different analyses, as follows:
Read in load step 1, and store a result item in the element table
as A1 (for example).
Then read in load step 2 and store the same result item as A2.
Now you can compare A1 and A2 and store the maximum or
minimum in a third column, or do other desired operations.
This scheme can be extended to compare different results files
for the same model.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-39
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Saving and Deleting the Table:
To save the element table along with the ANSYS database:
Save the database while still in POST1 (Toolbar > SAVE_DB or
SAVE command).
Or use the "Save everything" option when exiting ANSYS
(Toolbar > QUIT or /EXIT,ALL command).

To delete the entire element table:

Element Table > Erase Table
Or ETABLE,ERASE

To delete one item (column) in the element table:

Use the Delete button in the Element Table Data dialog.
Or ETABLE,name,ERASE
October 30, 2001
Inventory #001571
4-40
Working with Elements
...Element Table Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

Demo:
Continue with previous "bolthole" demo
Select TYPE 1 elements (SURF154s) and all nodes attached to them
Bring up help for SURF154 and show the "Output Definitions" and "Item and
Sequence Numbers" tables. Note that P5EFF (effective pressure on face 5) is
SMISC 17.
Store SMISC,17 as P5 in the element table, plot it with and without averaging, then
list it
Select everything, return to PREP7, and set KEYOPT(11)=2 for SURF154 (Options >
K11 = full area w/tan). This changes face 5 pressures to "full" area instead of
projected area.
Switch to Solution, type in ANTYPE,,RESTART (to continue with load step 2), and
solve.
In POST1, read in load step 2, then select TYPE 1 elements (SURF154s) and all
nodes attached to them
Store SMISC,17 as P5A in the element table. (Notice that P5 from the previous load
step still exists.)
List the element table P5A column should show all 1000s
Select everything and plot SY stresses, etc. Compare with load step 1 results.
October 30, 2001
Inventory #001571
4-41
Working with Elements
D. Workshop Training Manual

INTRODUCTION TO ANSYS 6.0 - Part 2

This workshop consists of the following problem:
W3. Bolt Torque

Please refer to your Workshop Supplement for instructions.

October 30, 2001

Inventory #001571
4-42