Product: ABAQUS/CAE
Benefits: You can now create paths that follow element edges, the circumference of a circle, or the radius of a circle. In addition to the new methods, the endpoints of paths are now clearly labeled, both when first created and when plotted in a viewport.
Description: You create edge list paths by selecting edges from the viewport; you can also use standard keyboard and mouse editing techniques to edit the edge labels in the path definition table. Edge labels are of the form (element number, face number, edge number, direction). In addition, you can select a single element edge, and ABAQUS/CAE can calculate the shortest element edge path to a node that you select as the endpoint. If you select an element edge that lies along a feature edge, ABAQUS/CAE can automatically select the remaining edges between your selection and the end of the feature edge.
To create circumferential or radial paths, you must first define a circle in the viewport. After defining the circle, you can select a different length for the radius, specify the number of segments in the path, and enter a start and an end angle for a circumferential path. For a radial path you can select a radial angle, specify the number of segments in the path, and pick the distance at which the path will start and end along the radius. You can create circumferential paths to obtain cross-sectional results in a curved portion of a model. You can use radial paths to obtain results spanning from the inner to the outer face of a curve; radial paths are ideal for use in stress linearization (for more information, see “Enhancements to stress linearization,” Section 15.4). Figure 15–5 shows a circumferential path definition and the path that it creates in the viewport.
Figure 15–6 shows a radial path definition and the path that it creates in the viewport.Visualization module: ToolsPath
