What Is A FBD?: Moment Utility
What Is A FBD?: Moment Utility
What Is A FBD?: Moment Utility
A Free Body Diagram (FBD) is used to analyze the forces and moments acting on a body.
In HyperMesh, you can create or edit FBDs using several tools that display in the tab area.
Each FBD tool displays on a separate tab, which opens when you activate that tool.
Free Body Diagram (FBD) utilities facilitate the extraction and post-processing of Grid Point
Force (GPFORCE) results. FBD extractions are typically utilized for breakout and/or sub-
modeling analysis schemes, where balanced "free body" sub-cases are extracted from a coarse
grid model and applied to a fine grid sub-model for eventual optimization and/or analysis. FBD
is also used to extract cross-sectional resultant forces and moments (typically at the centroid of
a cross-section) for use in traditional strength calculations.
Defining Cross-Sections
The FBD Cross-section Manager (CSM) utility creates and manages cross-section definitions
that are used within the Resultant Force & Moment utility.
This utility contains tools for defining cross-sections, which are defined by an element set, node
set, summation node, and a local result coordinate system. It also features semi-automatic
generation of element and node sets for defining cross-sections.
The FBD Cross-section Manager interface has two creation methods available for cross-
section definition: manual and (semi-) automatic. The Advanced options section provides the
means to semi-automatically create cross-section element and node sets for beam-like
2. Under the Output Requests tab, find GPFORCE in the left window pane.
3. Specify the format for the GPFORCE output. The Free Body tools in HyperMesh
support the following GPFORCE formats for the listed solvers:
• Abaqus: .odb
• Ansys: .rst
• OptiStruct/Nastran: .op2
Note: The above steps requests GPFORCES for all loadsteps. The same steps can also be
followed if only a few loadsteps need to be considered. t
6. Click Nodes twice, select the left-top (Node 83) and left-bottom nodes (Node 84) which
define the first cross-section for Spar2.
7. Click proceed.
8. In the Element set prefix field, enter Spar2_E and in Node set prefix, enter Spar2_N.
Since the cross-section manager utility creates the necessary element and node sets,
you must define a prefix string for both element and node sets. This string will be
appended by an incremental number to give each created set a unique name. Optional
10. Click Advanced options to close the Auto create cross-sections form.
11. Select the Display sections check box and then select any section in the spreadsheet
to review the selected cross-section.
The graphics area will be updated with the element set, node set, sum node, and result
system that define the selected cross-section. Optionally, if you select the Show model
check box, the entire model will be visible in the graphics area with the selected cross-
section highlighted in red and the remainder of the model transparent.
Function Description
Coordinate System Defines the coordinate system used for output of node
locations (x,y,z) only. The coordinate system does not affect
the transformation of the resultant force and moment vector
results, which is defined by the result system on each cross-
section definition.
Zero tolerance Defines any number less than this number is set to zero for
numerical issues.
Create load collectors Creates load collectors containing the results of the resultant
force and moment calculations so that the results can be
visualized in the graphics area as force and moment vectors.
Show summary table Brings up a window with formatted results similar to the .csv
(comma separated) file. Use this output for quick checks of the
data without having to open an alternative spreadsheet or text
editor program.
Create .csv file Creates a .csv file with the results of the resultant force and
moment calculations, which can be opened directly within
standard spreadsheet applications.
Create .fbd file Creates an .fbd file with the results of the resultant force and
moment calculations, which can be directly read into
HyperGraph to create shear moment diagrams and potato
plots.
12. Activate the Create .csv file check box, and click select from list. ( ) to select an
existing .csv file (append data) or enter a new file name; in this case, enter
res_force_moment.csv.
13. Activate the Create .fbd file check box, and click select from list. ( ) to select an
existing .fbd file (append data) or enter a new file name; in this case, enter
res_force_moment.fbd.
By default, files are put into the HyperMesh start directory unless you specify another
directory or enter a file name.
14. Click Accept to execute the resultant force and moment calculations on all selected
cross-sections for all selected subcases.
The Resultant Force and Moment Output Summary window displays the resultant
force and moment calculations (see the following image). For each cross-section, there
is a separate data block grouped by loadstep. The data block contains cross-section
nodal forces, moments, and the sum of those nodal forces and moments about the
defined sum node, in this case the calculated centroid of the cross-section. Note that
the sum of the moment components (Mx, My, Mz) for each node is not the direct sum, as
the (rXF) terms for the force resultant vector about the sum node must also be added to
each moment component appropriately. The sum of the forces components (Fx, Fy, Fz)
for each node is, however, the simple sum.
9. Click system.
10. Select system 102 on left-middle end (x-axis along length, y-axis along web, z-axis
normal to web).
Note: You may have to display the Longeron2 system collector from the Model
Browser (Model tab) to display system 102.
11. Click set displacement.
12. Click return to exit the Systems panel.
13. Finally we will assign a constraint to left-bottom node. From the menu bar, select BCs >
Create > Constraints to go to the Constraints panel.
14. Select the left-bottom node shown in the image above.
Step 4: Update the loadsteps for all four free body load cases
1. From the main menu, select the Analysis page and then loadsteps to go to the
LoadSteps panel.
2. Click name = and select SUBCASE 9.
3. Toggle type to linear static.
4. Select SPC, click =, and select Const load collector.
5. Click update.
6. Repeat steps for SUBCASE 11, SUBCASE 14, and SUBCASE 16.