• Registered: 2022-03-24
  • Posts: 1

Topic: Difference: Element Type and Element Geometry

Hello,

I'm currently working with GiD and ATENA to simulate some existing beam-experiments and trying to find the best settings to approximate those. I already worked through the manuals and did the GiD-Tutorial, but I am still a bit confused about the difference between 'element type' and 'element geometry' and how it effects the calculation/simulation. Two questions:

1. For a 3D-simulation I choose hexahedra-elements and the type 'normal' which should create 8 nodes for each element. If I choose the type 'quadratic' (Mesh>Quadratic type>Quadratic) the elements are now a 20 node brick-element, right?

2. If I want the calculation to be nonlinear I need to adjust the 'element geometry' in the materials-settings to NONLINEAR and choose the quadratic-mesh too. If I just choose a qudratic-mesh without adjusting the element geometry it would still not be a nonlinear calculation, right?


Your help would be very appreciated!

Thanks and best regards
Felix

Quote Post 1

  • From: Finland
  • Registered: 2019-03-28
  • Posts: 138

Re: Difference: Element Type and Element Geometry

Hi Felix

1) yes, that's right in general. I would recommend to use normal type unless you are certain that you need quadratic.
2) This setting is only for geometrical nonlinearity during iterating process. All ATENA materials are geometrically nonlinear by default, this is a special setting that is not needed in most of the cases.

Hope it helps,

Pavel.

Quote Post 2

  • Registered: 2020-09-07
  • Posts: 48

Re: Difference: Element Type and Element Geometry

Dear Felix,
1- We use quadratic when we have shell elements, or very coarse mesh because the model so large, but in general cases keep using normal
2- As Pavel explained above (Thanks Pavel)

You can send your model to us tp cervenka@cervenka.cz  in case you need any help

Regards,
Mohamad

Quote Post 3