Reviewing FEA Results in Pro-Mechanica: Part 8 of a Tutorial

Reviewing FEA Results in Pro-Mechanica: Part 8 of a Tutorial

Display Type

Select run a design study or go to analysis>mechanica analysis /studies to open the analysis and design study window.

The right most icon of the window is “review result” after the analysis is done you need to click on this icon and you will get the result window definition dialogue box.

result window defination dialogue box

Now you have to tell pro mechanica where the design study or analysis data are. You may recall the run settings icon of the analysis and design study window, by which you can specify the location of output files. Specify the same location by clicking the icon just below the design study of the study selection section. Now you have to select the analysis from the analysis drop down list.

Display Type: Which types of representation of your model do you want to see in the result window?

If you want to see a graphical representation of your actual model and quantity to be shown by different colors associated with specified magnitude then select fringe.

If you want to see a graphical representation of your actual model and quantity to be measured to be shown by vector arrows, then go for vector.

If you feel that the measured quantity should be plotted by means of graph, choose graph.

And if you want to see your actual model, go for model.

Options

Now that you are quite clear about your display type, now notice the bottom three tabs of the window:

Quantity: Some of your options are stress, as well as strain and displacements for structural analysis. Similarly for thermal you can display temperature, heat flux etc. Here you have to select what exactly you want to display in result.

Display Locations: The options available under this tab will allow you to specify if you want to see your result with respect to a particular surface or volume or curve.

Note that, the curve option will work well with beam idealization.

Display Options: Lots of options (most of them are available by checking a box) are available under this tab. Moreover the options change with a change in display type. So if you change the display type from fringe to model some more options are added or removed from this tab.

Let’s make the things simple, I will explain most of the useful options available under this tab**.**

Continuous Tone: If you check this box, you will see smooth colored fringes (i.e. strips).The transition from one color fringe to the next is smooth.

Legend Level: The number of color legends you want to see in the result window is defined by this option.

Contour: If you check this box, you will see several colored lines and/or iso surface instead of colored fringes. You can check the level contour option to see the level attached with each line or iso-surface.

Deformed: If you check this you will see the result in the deformed shape and vice versa.

Show Element Edges: Use this to see the boundary lines of different elements.

Animate: This option and all the check box below this controls animation of result.

There are some additional self-explanatory options, so for now we will move on to graph.

Graph Options

I feel this is a strong and useful option of pro mechanica especially when you are using beam idealization. You can plot a shear force diagram (SFD) and bending moment diagram (BMD) of beam easily with this option.

Here is a basic example of beam idealization. Just remember that to idealize (or create) a beam in pro mechanica you need to have a curve.

result window defination dialogue box for graph

After analysis of the beam you come to the result window definition dialogue box. Here you select Graph from the display options you will see a window (click on the picture to enlarge image)

Now you have to choose shear and moment and select the beam curve for graph location and click on “OK and Show”.

Bingo!!!

You got the SFD and BMD of the beam. Please ensure the right component selection.

This completes the tutorial!

This post is part of the series: Pro-Mechanica Tutorial

Pro-mechanica is a FEA module of pro-engineer. If you complete reading this series and do practice as required then you will be able to do analysis using pro-mechanica, of course you should have basic knowledge of pro-engineer or other 3D cad package.

  1. Pro-Mechanica Tutorial Part 1: Introduction to FEA
  2. Pro-Mechanica Tutorial Part 2: AutoGEM & Meshing
  3. Pro-Mechanica Tutorial Part 3: Structural Loads
  4. Pro-Mechanica Tutorial Part 4: Thermal Loads
  5. Pro-Mechanica Tutorial Part 5: Thermal Constraints
  6. Pro-Mechanica Tutorial Part 6: Structural Constraints
  7. Pro Engineer Mechanica Tutorial Part 7: Analysis and Design Studies
  8. Pro-Mechanica Tutorial Part 8: Reviewing FEA Results