Review Tool

Introduction

Access the Review tool from the Mesh ribbon by clicking on the satellite icon (the magnifying glass) on the 1D Mesh tool.

This context allows you to plot area moments of inertia as well as stiffness terms (Elyy, Elzz, and GJ) either as a contour or a vector plot. In addition, a legend provides extra quantities such as Elemental axis (X,Y,Z), Neutral axis position, and Shear center position.

Figure 1.

The selected element must have a beamsection entity assigned to its property in order to extract data names to contour or vector plot. If a material is assigned with young modulus or shear modulus available, stiffness terms are calculated. Shear modulus is not recalculated from Poisson's ratio.

Contour and vector plots enable you to see stiffness drop along a path. Vector plots capture all beamsections assigned to a PBEAM/PBEAML, and can plot every intermediate station.

Figure 2.

In the image above, the neutral axis line shows discontinuities in neutral axis position. This could be due to element formulation changes (CBAR vs. CBEAM) or inconsistent offset values. The shear center line displays the shear center position after offset. This is useful when you don't know the actual section shape.