Product Features

Extension of the static analysis settings with the "Calculation diagrams" option for creating the user-defined calculation diagrams.

Extension of the surface result tables with regard to the stress and strain results by thickness layer.

Extension of the solid definition with the "Grid for Results" option for organizing grid points in the solid space. Among other things, the center of gravity can be set as the origin. There is also the option to activate or deactivate the visibility of the grid for numerical results in the Navigator display under Basic Objects.

Logical connection of the manual chapters with the "F1" help function. With the "F1" help function, the program opens the corresponding manual chapter from the currently viewed menu tab.

As already mentioned, the results of a Modal Analysis load case are displayed in the program after a successful calculation. Hence, you can immediately see the first mode shape graphically or as an animation. The representation of the mode shape standardization can be easily adjusted. You can do this directly in the Results navigator, where you should select one of the three options for the visualization of the mode shapes: scale the value of the mode shape vector uj to 1 (considers only the translation components); select the maximum translational component of the eigenvector and set it to 1; or consider the entire eigenvector (including the rotation components), select the maximum, and set it to 1.

It is often necessary to neglect masses, especially when the output of the modal analysis is to be used by the seismic analysis, where 90% of the effective modal mass in each direction is required for the calculation. Thus, you can neglect masses in all fixed nodal and line supports so that the program will automatically deactivate the masses associated with them, but you can also manually select the objects for which the masses should be neglected in the modal analysis. The latter is shown in the image, where a user-defined selection is preferred, and the objects as well as their associated mass components are selected to neglect the masses.

The results of the Modal Analysis in RFEM 6 also include the tabular and graphical output of masses in mesh points. This way, you can check the imported masses that depend on various settings of the modal analysis and can be displayed in the Masses in Mesh Points tab of the Results table. The table provides an overview of the following results: mass translational directions (mX, mY, mZ), mass rotational directions (mφX, mφY, mφZ), and the sum of the masses. If you are interested in a quick graphical evaluation, you can also display the masses in the mesh points graphically.

When defining the input data for the modal analysis load case, you can consider a load case whose stiffnesses represent the initial position for the modal analysis. You can do this by using the "Consider initial state from" option shown in the image. Hence, if you open the "Initial State Settings" dialog box and define Stiffness as a type of the initial state, you can consider the stiffness of the structural system, if the tension members fail in the load case from which the initial state is considered. The stiffness from this load case is then considered in the modal analysis and a softer system is obtained.

The structural modifications can be easily defined in load cases of the Modal Analysis type. For instance, you can individually adjust the stiffnesses of materials, cross-sections, members, surfaces, hinges, and supports. You can modify stiffnesses for some design add-ons as well. Once you select the objects, their stiffness properties are adapted to the object type, and you can define them in separate tabs.