Orientations of principal vectors - CAE

[satyasrinivas]

Hi,

What is the best way to retrieve the orientations of the principal strains and stresses in the global coord. system.
I would like to do this in CAE.

I want to know for eg., what are the angles the principal strain make with the XY plane and the Y axis.
Let me also mention here that there are some elements in the model with zero strains and displacements.

Thanks
SS

 

[vumat721]

Symbol plot will show you the directions. From the menu:
Plot... Symbol...
By default, this will plot the Principal stress directions.

You will likely need to scale the size of the arrows. From the menu:
Options... Symbol...
On the "Color & Style" tab, select "screen size" and move the slider until the arrows are a size that you like.

If you want the actual directions in numerical format, you have at least these two choices:
1) Follow the example "Calculation of principal stresses and strains and their directions: FPRIN" in the abaqus doc, or
2) If you store the full stress matrix S (e.g. components are s11, s12, etc.) then you should be able to use that to calculate the principal directions of stress.