CAE Fidesys 9.0 Documentation

Block Properties \ Parameters

The following issues are discussed below:

• Assigning material to a block
• Setting the coordinate system to a block
• Selecting a category for a block
• Assigning element order to a block
• Setting the properties of beams, shells, springs and point masses for a block

General Points

On the panel Mode-Blocks, Object-Block, Action- Block properties/parameters, you need to specify the block material, coordinate systems, category of elements and their order.

It is possible to select the block to which the properties will be assigned in one of the suggested ways:

• enter the block number in the block ID field (s)
• click in the block (s) ID field, and then click on the part of the model added to the block in the graphics window
• select the appropriate block name in the Block name drop-down list

To assign a material to a block, select one of the available (pre-created) materials in the Material drop-down list.

To set a coordinate system for a block, select one of the available (pre-created) coordinate systems in the corresponding drop-down list.

The choice of the category of elements depends on the desired characteristics of the model itself. In the Category field, select the item that corresponds to the entity of the object added to the block. The following categories are available in CAE Fidesys for the respective element types:

• Solid: SOLID;
• Plane (2D): PLANE;
• Shell: SHELL;
• Beam: BEAM;
• Rod: ROD;
• Spring: SPRING;
• Fluid: FLUID;
• Point mass: LUMPED MASS;
• Point finite element without mechanical characteristics: POINT.

For more information about the types of elements, see the section Types of elements.

If no element type is assigned to the block, the program selects it by default based on the type of geometric object contained in the block. In this case, the following rules are used:

• In volumes, meshes are generated from SOLID and FLUID elements;
• Meshes are generated on surfaces from SHELL or PLANE elements;
• Curves generate meshes from BEAM, or SPRING, or ROD elements;
• Vertices correspond to single-node LUMPED MASS or POINT elements.

Depending on the selected element category, a special button may appear below to set specific properties of a beams, rods, shells, springs or point mass elements. When you click on the button, a new window should appear with fields for entering the properties of the specified elements. For acoustic calculations, you need to create a block with the Acoustic environment category and set the acoustic material for the frequency and speed of sound.

To set the order of the element, specify. Thus, order 2 corresponds to the choice of an element of the second order, where intermediate nodes are added on the faces. The order of element 3 and further means that the calculation will be carried out by The Spectral Element Method of the corresponding order. More details can be found in the section Types of spectral elements.

NOTE: Nodes corresponding to the second order of approximation are positioned according to curved geometry by default. To change this rule, you can use the command:

set node constraint [ON | off | smart]

The off setting corresponds to the arrangement of higher-order nodes without regard to curved geometry. They occupy middle positions between the corner nodes of the elements: at the midpoints of straight edges, at the centers of flat faces, etc. The smart setting ensures that curvature is taken into account only when it does not degrade the quality of the elements.