Three-Dimensional Meshing

Two previous posts showed how to use Minjie's meshing functions to create line meshes for beam-column elements and 2D meshes for solid elements. This post will complete the trilogy by showing how to make a 3D mesh for solid elements. The bar shown below is the same model used in the post on 2D meshing. … Continue reading Three-Dimensional Meshing →

Two-Dimensional Meshing

Although the material and element models are there, OpenSees is not well known for solid finite element analysis. Creating a good mesh is key to solid FEA and there aren't many meshing tools implemented in OpenSees. The OG block2D and block3D commands work fine, but you have to manually join or tie adjacent meshes with … Continue reading Two-Dimensional Meshing →

A Quad Out West

I wrote this limerick in 2000 after coding the four node quad element in OpenSees. I once programmed a quad out West, Displacement-based, so not the best. Debugged emphatically, Converges quadratically. It even passes the patch test. I'm no Chris Jones. This and the algorithmic limerick are the extent of my limerick library.

Behind the Elastic Interior

If VH1 expanded its list of the top one hit wonders of the 2000s to include journal articles in structural engineering, Scott and Fenves (2006) would be right up there with James Blunt and Gnarls Barkley. Actually, Google Scholar puts the article up there with some pretty nice company. Like all journal articles, there's something … Continue reading Behind the Elastic Interior →