field output in element coordinate system

[Nicksen]

Hello @ all

I am new here and I think my question is a simple one. But unfortunately I did not find an appropriate answer yet.

Before we got started to use ABAQUS we used MSC.Marc/Mentat to calculate our problems. And now; here is my question:

How to display the field output (i.e. the stresses or strains) in the local element coordinate systems using ABAQUS 6.6?
The option "ORIENTATION" can be used to define local orientations, but it is obviously not possible to generate material orientations that follow the local element coordinate orientations.
In MSC.Marc one can define an orientation type called "edge12". Without defining an orientation angle all local coordinate systems have the first axis parallel to the local element edge12 for each element. If you now select the output to be in the user-preferred-csys one can display all the stresses in the local element coordinate systems.

In ABAQUS it seems that you can only display the global stresses, which is not enough for me. Let´s imagine an easy uniaxial tension test for a specimen with a welding. In the global directions you can find a constant stress field. But to evaluate the normal and shear stresses for the welding, you have to use a proper transformation.

In my oppinion there must be an easy way to achive this, because I think that it is a very important thing when you interpret the results of an analysis.

The documentation says that one have to define the local coordinates element by element with an element property or with a subroutine. The first thing is very drudgingly and the latter I want to avoid for now.

I hope that anyone can help me. And I look forward to your answers.
Thank everyone in advance.

the Nicksen

[Jorgen]

I don't know exactly what you are looking for, but the *Orientation command in ABAQUS will allow you to define the local coordinate system, both for material parameters and for output purposes.

- Jorgen

[Nicksen]

Hello Mr. Bergstrom,

you are right so far, but this option needs a set to act on. If you now consider that you want all elements to output their strains and stresses in their own orientations, you have to define a local coordinate system for every element.
That is very time- consuming.

Let us imagine a simple model with more than 10 Elements (3 Dim.; 8 nodes). The faces of these elements are mostly not congruent or parallel. You want to extract the pressure on each face at the models boundary, better to say you want to visualize the components of the normal stress for each outer face.

How to achive this without defining local CSYS for each element?

I hope that I could make myself a little bit more clear than the last time and I would be very pleased if anybody can help me.

thank you in advance
and best regards

Nixon