Author: Positive Definite

I definitely attempt to stay positive all the time. I have been involved in the development, maintenance, and growth of OpenSees since its early days. Recently, I've taken an interest in learning Python and improving my academic writing.

There’s Three, Actually

The displacement-based and force-based formulations garner a lot of comparisons for simulating nonlinear frame response. My Google Scholar alerts tell me so. And I even wrote a post comparing the two formulations. Doc Ock from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse There is a third formulation--the mixed formulation. Alemdar and White compared three frame element formulations (displacement-based, … Continue reading There’s Three, Actually →

Discretized Members Only

I wrote a DiscretizeMember procedure in Tcl many years ago--I don't know exactly when, definitely after the 1980s and definitely before moving to Eastchester. "Members Only." by The Semi-Frozen Trombone is licensed under CC BY 2.0 After carrying the function around for years, and probably spawning more variations than uniaxial Concrete models, the procedure went … Continue reading Discretized Members Only →

Go Cite Yourself

Metric-driven academia, with its focus on h-indices and impact factors, can lead to shady behaviors like citation cartels and publication bounties. Superfluous self-citations are also shady, but a few self-citations are natural when developing a line of research. So, go ahead and take a selfie. https://twitter.com/mikusscott/status/975382276434378752 Think of the baristas at your local coffee shop. … Continue reading Go Cite Yourself →

Right Under Your Nose

I long ago accepted that buckling analysis would never be implemented in OpenSees. Although there is a getGeometricTangentStiff() method in the Element interface, only PFEM fluid elements use it. Implementing this method for frame elements, assembling the geometric stiffness, and solving the generalized eigenvalue problem would require several updates to the innards of OpenSees. Then … Continue reading Right Under Your Nose →

Going Through Stages

Most structural earthquake engineering deals with staged analyses of built infrastructure in one way or another. In the most common scenario, we apply gravity loads to a structural model, get the model in equilibrium, then simulate the model response to earthquake loading. Analysis of structural systems and components during construction is also important. Temporary construction … Continue reading Going Through Stages →

Elastoplastic Calibration

You can do a lot with UniaxialMaterials in OpenSees--springs, fibers, trusses, section aggregators, etc. Although over 130 UniaxialMaterials are available, it's likely that only about a dozen see regular use. So, with all due respect to Concrete23, my favorite regular is HardeningMaterial. It's straight out of Simo and Hughes and was the example material for … Continue reading Elastoplastic Calibration →