NFORC for defining total forces across section

[bfillery]

Hi all,

My first question is in regards to NFORC. My basic understanding is that NFORC calculates the nodal forces within an element that can be attributed to the stresses within that element. If I have a surface that defines a section through a 3D body, can I sum these NFORC for all elements that define the surface to obtain an effecitve total force acting on this surface or should I somehow get a subset of these at the element centroid and then sum them?

Also, should adjoining elements that share nodes have the same value for NFORC at these shared nodes. I have noticed that they are not always identical. Is there a reason for this? I would presume that if the elements share nodes that NFORC should return identical values at these nodes for the adjoining elements.

Thanks
bfillery

 

[corus]

I'm not sure how you can get a subset of the nodal forces at the element centroids as, of course, there are no nodes there.

You should find that the nodal forces at a node belonging to a number of adjoining elements will sum to zero, unless you have imposed a force there. So the nodal forces for each element won't be equal. If there were only two elements with a common node, then the nodal forces would be equal and opposite for equilibrium.

corus