Create Beam Structural Elements

Beam structural elements can be meshed with 1D elements or shell elements.

  1. From the Certification ribbon, click the Beam tool.
    Figure 1.


    When Structural elements are created, a structural property can be selected.
  2. Click to define how properties are assigned.
    Each structural element must have a structural property assigned to it in order to run method.
    Single property
    Assigns the same structuralproperty entity to all designpoints.
    Duplicate and assign property to all
    Creates a new instance of the selected structuralproperty and assigns the copy to all designpoints.
    Duplicate and assign property per designpoint
    Creates a new instance of selected structuralproperty per designpoint entity.
    This option performs a deep copy, meaning the structural property's references, such as materiel/property or beamsection, are also copied. Each structural property generated is fully independent.
    This is useful for design exploration where you will update structural properties separately.
  3. Mesh with 1D or shell elements.
    OptionDescription
    1D Mesh

    In this case, as shown in Figure 2, the result will be a Member, extracted as a collection of 1D elements representing a true Beam between intersection points.

    1. Set the entity type on the first selector to Elements.
    2. Optionally, select a destination DesignPointSet to hold newly created designpoints.

      If no set is selected, a new one is created with config Beam and type Beam_member.

      If you enter this menu from the Certification Browser context menu using Auto DDP, the selector is pre-populated with the selected designpointset.

    3. Specify a structuralproperty entity (of config beam) if the Absorb FE Property checkbox is unselected.

      Otherwise, a structural property is absorbed from the model by collecting the beamsection/material pair assigned to the bar2/rod element closest to the center of each designpoint.

    Figure 2. Extract Members
    Shell Mesh

    In the event of a shell mesh which represents structural beams, you need to first generate freebody sections using a dedicated tool. As shown in Figure 3, the result is a designpoint entity per freebody section.

    1. Set the entity type on the first selector to Freebody Sections.
    2. Optionally, select a destination DesignPointSet to hold newly created designpoints.

      If no set is selected, a new one is created with config Beam and type Beam_shell.

    3. Specify a structuralproperty entity (of config beam), the same as for 1D beams.

      The Absorb FE Property checkbox does not exist for this use case.

    Figure 3. Beams from Freebody Sections
  4. On the guide bar, click one of the following:
    • Click to save changes and stay in the tool.
    • Click to save changes and close the tool.