Beams From Lines

These tools enable the creation of 1D elements from surface lines, organizing them into components. They also offset/orient these elements based on the attached shell elements and calculating properties of these 1D elements from 3D solid or shell FE element sections.

Beams From Lines: Create

Use this tool to create 1D elements to match the existing shell elements from lines (surface edges). Normally surfaces are split into panels using lines and planes. Then shell meshes are created on those split surfaces. This tool extracts 1D elements to match the shell elements along the split lines of the surface and separates them into predefined components based on system direction. Each system direction can have different types of 1D elements (bar, beam or ROD properties).
Figure 1. A Shell Element Model with Panel Surface Edges (Green Edges) Where the Beam Will be Created


  1. Select all of the surface edges. This tool works on surface edges without free floating lines. Therefore, you need to mask or delete all of the free lines.
  2. From the Mesh ribbon, click the arrow next to the 1D Mesh tool set name and select Beam Sections from CSV to import the standard beam section from a .csv file. In this example the CSV format and the +Y axis of the beam will be aligned with the shell normal.
    Figure 2. Standard Beam Section Definitions from a .csv File


  3. Select Local as the System Type.
  4. Assign beam section to each system axis. If the axis does not need a beam, you can make the selection Unspecified.
  5. Click Create. A beam will be created with the correct beam section properties and type (CROD, CBAR, CBEAM) along each system axis.
    Figure 3. 1D Elements are Created to Match the Shell Elements and Correct Beam Sections are Assigned


Beams From Lines: Organize

The purpose of this tool is to separate all of the 1D beam elements into components based on local system directions.
  1. Create empty components in each system direction.
  2. Move the beams automatically to those components.

Beams From Lines: Update

Use this tool to update 1D element properties, change the orientation, or assign offset to existing BEAM elements. The offset and orientation is based on the attached shell element normal and shell element thickness.

Using the Beam Update tool, beam sections can be automatically calculated from 3D solid or FE shell/beam models.

The beam properties are calculated from the FE model and are assigned to the center beam (the white line in the middle).
Figure 4.


Figure 5.


Figure 6. Beam Properties are Calculated and Assigned to Each Beam


Beam Property creation for VABS
Restriction: Only available in the OptiStruct solver interface.

You can create a section from composites and generate a VABS file OptiStruct PBEAML using the VABS file. For more information, see OS-T: 9000 OptiStruct and VABS Integration.