Topic: Line displacement vs. Point displacement

Hi,

In the Atena 3D tutorial you suggest the following:
"Now it would be advantageous to apply the prescribed displacement to a single node rather then to a line...If the prescribed displacement is applied to a single node it is possible to monitor the reaction forces at this node. If the prescribed displacement is applied to a line, it will be necessary to sum all the reactions at these nodes in order to obtain the total loading force"

If i understand this correctly, one would have to:
i) create nodes on this (displacement) line on the loading plate macro element.
ii) make sure the generated mesh creates nodes on all these points
iii) add reaction monitor points to these nodes.

then to find the total load at failure:
add up the reaction at each of these nodes (recorded by the reaction monitoring points) after the analysis.
-> Total failure Load = failure load (at n.1) + failure load (at n.2) + ... + failure load (at n.k)
for nodes 1...k

If this is correct, would it work for a surface where monitoring points are located at the nodes created on this surface ?

Thank you

Re: Line displacement vs. Point displacement

Yes, you understand correctly.
However, if you only need the total value from a single load step, you do not need to define all the monitors (nor redefine them with each mesh change) and you may just use text output to get the values to be summed.