Deformations are the values of a deformed field output variable; for example, displacement or velocity. ABAQUS/CAE computes the deformed shape by applying the deformations to the undeformed nodal coordinates. You can scale the deformations to magnify, reduce, or otherwise distort the deformed model shape. For example, Figure 36–5 displays a deformed shape contour plot on the left and the same plot with the deformation magnified 15 times on the right.
Deformation scaling is plot state–independent; that is, you set it once for the deformed shape in all deformed, contour, symbol, and material orientation plots. The default scaling is a uniform factor of 1.00 for large-displacement analyses. For small-deformation analyses—for example, a perturbation analysis—ABAQUS/CAE scales the deformation such that the maximum deformation is 10% of the largest model dimension.
To scale the deformations:
From the main menu bar, select Options
Common. Click the Basic tab in the dialog box that appears. The Deformation Scale Factor options are in the lower left corner of the Basic page.
Choose one of the following scale factor options:
Click Auto-compute to request that ABAQUS automatically compute and uniformly apply a single scale factor to all X-, Y-, and Z-components of deformation values.
Click Uniform to specify and uniformly apply a single scale factor to all X-, Y-, and Z-components of deformation values.
When Uniform is on, a Value specification box becomes available. Click the Value box, and enter your scale factor.
Click Nonuniform to specify individual scale factors to be applied to the X-, Y-, and Z-components of deformation values.
When Nonuniform is on, X-, Y-, and Z-component scale factor specification boxes become available. For each component you want to scale, click the component (X, Y, or Z) scale factor box and enter your scale factor.
Click Apply to implement your changes.
The deformed shape changes according to your specification. The state block, if active, changes to show the current deformation scale factors.
Your changes are saved for the duration of the session and will affect all subsequent deformed shape plots.
