Calculix FEA Beam Part 1: Buliding Geometry and Meshing

Posted on December 20, 2010 by mechanicalguy

This article is the first segment of several related to CalculiX. This magnum opus of open
source is a full non-linear finite element package running on linux, windows, and mac. It is
divided into two primary programs, cgx and ccx. The first of the two Calculix GraphiX, cgx,
handles pre-processing to define a geometry, mesh, loads, and boundary conditions. The
second program Calculix CrunchiX, ccx, handles the number crunching. It will solve for the
solution using the finite element method. Then the results will be post-processed using cgx.
This tutorial examines the basic usage of cgx to define a beam geometry and mesh.

If you’ve already got bConverged installed go ahead and open the SciTE text editor, then
“save as” a blank file with name beam.fbd. Saving a blank document with the correct file
extension allows SciTE to recognize it and apply the bConverged customizations like source
highlights and starting the cgx or ccx program from within the text editor. Its analogous to
using an IDE like eclipse to write code. Firing up cgx with the current file as input is
available from the Tools->Pre Process menu item or the F10 key.
In the case that you’re on a box without bConverged the steps to create an .fbd file are
essentially the same on linux or from a dos/cygwin bash shell on windows. Use you’re
favorite text editor to create the .fbd file and then read it using the following command, cgx -b
filename.fbd. If you’re on bConverged with windows calling it from the command line
add .bat to the end of the cgx command name and make sure you’ve got it in your path.
Add the following text to the beam.fbd file as shown in the image below. This is the start of a
cgx batch file. Geometry can be created interactively with cgx running or described in
a .fbd batch file which is read into cgx at startup. Generally speaking it is easier to define
geometry with a batch file. All the commands are exactly the same between batch and
interactive mode. Interactive mode is a bit more useful when it comes to working with the
mesh like assigning boundary conditions, loads, and constraints to a set of specific nodes.
The first two lines of the batch file define points in cgx model space. The first point is
named p1 located at (x,y,z) = 0. The third line of code defines a cgx line with name l1 that starts
at point p1 and ends a point p2 and has a division of 25

If you’re using bConverged on windows the SciTE editor is configured to launch the cgx
program and feed it the currently active tab, in our case beam.fbd. Just hit the F10 Key or
choose Tools->Pre Process from the menu. The following result is displayed in the below
image. This is the cgx program up and running with the results of the batch file shown in the
graphics area. The keyboard is used to provide most of the commands to cgx while it is
running, also known as interactive mode. In addition the window is divided into two distinct
areas. On the right side top corner is the graphics display area bordered by a thin black line.
Inside the graphics display area clicking and holding the mouse has the following
functionality
1. Left mouse button = rotate
2. Middle mouse button = zoom
3. Right mouse button = pan
Moving the mouse out of the area surrounded by the thin black border the mouse has
different functionality. In this area the left mouse button is used to bring up a menu which
gives the user a graphical front end to some of the cgx commands which can alternatively be
typed on the keyboard. Only a small subset of the commands are available through the pop
up menu.

Now lets expand a bit on the idea of making a simple 100 x 10 x 1 rectangular beam meshed
with 1x1x1 cubes.
In the image above, several more points and line segments have been defined along the x
direction. These extra segments will allow for meshing at the desired resolution of 1x1x1
size elements. The reason for this is that each line segment is internally limited to 99
divisions. It won’t limit the users ability to choose an arbitrarily fine mesh, however, it will
require a bit of planning ahead to ensure enough line segments are used to achieve the
necessary mesh resolution. In addition quadratic elements mesh at a resolution of 2 line
divisions equals 1 mesh element side length. Linear elements mesh at a rate of 1 division
equals 1 mesh element length.

In the above image you will also notice the SciTE screen is split down the middle with an
input/output window on the right hand side. This split happens automatically when using
SciTE to launch cgx or ccx. It can be manually turned on or off using the View-
>Output menu item. This window is capturing all the cgx program output and keyboard
input. While the cgx window is the active window any keyboard input will be shown on the
bottom line of the output window. In the case of the view above I’ve typed the plot pa
all command but have yet to hit the enter button in order to activate it.
The above image shows the results of two commands. plot pa all tells cgx to display all
points p with their names a. More specifically it displays all the points contained within the
cgx set named all. Users can define their own sets with arbitrary members to manage the
problem definition and processing. The second command plus la all is used to add the lines
with their names to the existing plot. If instead plot la all had been typed after the first
command the points and their names would have been eliminated from the new plot view. It
would have redrawn the plot rather than just including additional information to the existing
plot. There is a corresponding minus command to remove information.
Next, build a surface from the line using a sweep command. Update the text file to reflect the
one shown below. After the file is updated hit F10 and then type the three commands shown
at the bottom of the image.
The text file is updated to create a set containing the four lines and then to sweep the set in
the y direction for a length of 10 units. The command seta is used to create a new set
named lines. The l flag indicates that the items to add are lines. Several seta commands can be
used to incrementally add elements, nodes, or geometry to the same set. The swep command
sweeps the set named lines via translation in (0,10,0) with 10 divisions and stores the newly
created lines and points into a set labeled sweplines. The resulting set created by
a swep command contains all of the supporting geometric entities one level below the primary
result of the command. For example, if a surface is created the set will be filled with the
newly created points and lines to support the definition of the surface. If a line is created the
set will be filled with points. The plus sa all command shows all surfaces with their labels.
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Next, use the plot ld all command to show only the lines with their divisions.

At this point the divisions define the mesh resolution of 100 x 10 in the x and y directions
respectively. The following adds another swep to turn the 2D surface into a 3D body.
The .fbd file and results are shown below. Note, the middle image shows how the menu

system was used to toggle the background color.

The second image above shows the result of left mouse click in the area outside of the
graphics display area to bring up the menu system. Some of the time its easier to view a
particular color with the background toggled to black. This is located under Viewing-
>Toggle Background Color.
At this point a body has been defined and we can get started meshing. Next, Use interactive
mode to issue the following commands from within cgx. The beam defined in the pervious
step must be loaded in cgx and the mouse must be within the cgx window.
elty all he8
mesh all
plot m all
And the beam will be displayed as shown below. The element faces are shown in green.
The elty all he8 command indicates that we will be meshing the set all with he8 elements. The
following element types are available to mesh with using cgx.
1. be2: 2 node 1D linear beam element
2. be3: 3 node 1D quadratic beam element
3. tr3: 3 node 2D linear triangular shell element
4. tr6: 6 node 2D quadratic triangular shell element
5. qu4: 4 node 2D linear quadrangle element
6. qu8: 8 node 2D quadratic quadrangle element
7. he8: 8 node 3D linear brick element
8. he20: 20 node 3D quadratic brick element
9. pe6: 6 node 3D linear penta element
10. pe15: 15 node 3D quadratic penta element
If you need to mesh using CAD geometry using 3D tetrahedrons it is best to do this in a third
party program like gmsh or netgen. Then the mesh can be imported and manipulated to add
boundary conditions and loads using cgx.

The green beam above shows the element faces in green and the model edges turned on. The
model edges form black border around the outside of the beam. Model edges are different
than element edges. The display can be manipulated using keyboard commands or simply
left click and choose Viewing -> Toggle Model Edges in the area outside of the graphics
display part of cgx.
And the resulting view in the graphics display area will look like the following.

Here is a view created by selecting the following menu option items. Viewing-
>DOTS and Viewing->Toggle Element Edges.
This clearly shows the mesh which was created based on the defined geometry and selected
element type. The next installment of this documentation will cover exporting the mesh,
boundary conditions, and loads into files ccx can crunch into results. Then the results will be
post processed using cgx.

Thanks for reading!

Ty Beede

Calculix FEA Beam Part 2: Exporting Mesh, Loads, and

Boundary Conditions
Posted on January 4, 2011 by mechanicalguy
This example starts from the beam model previously defined in the previous article about the
Calculix FEA package. In that article the beam geometry was created with cgx. Then a mesh
was defined using brick elements. The beam is he8 1 x 1 x 1 elements and spans a volume of
100 x 10 x 1. Now its mesh, loads and boundary conditions will be exported into individual
files in a format compatible with the ccx solver. This article will cover using cgx to pre-
process and export these files to define a cantilever beam.
Lets jump into the .fbd file shown below by using SciTE to edit the batch file previously
created, beam.fbd. The goal will be to define a set named beam, mesh it, and save the nodes
and elements in Abaqus format for input into ccx. This format for the mesh is consistent with
the ccx command syntax, which is also borrowed from Abaqus. However, this is where the
borrowing ends. The Calculix solver (ccx) and graphics tools (cgx) are built from scratch.
They are a complementary tour de force. The following image shows the beam.fbd file after
adding the new commands from where the previous article left off.

On line 1 the command seto beam has been used. This command tells cgx to open a set
named beam. While beam is the open set geometry created using cgx commands will be added
to this set. Then the set can be closed, at which point a new one can be opened to distinguish
between different components of the model. In addition, any individual command
between seto/setc can add items to an arbitrary set called by name, for example
the seta command is used on 11th line of code. The open set serves as a catch all for new
geometry. In this case, it is composed of the resulting geometry on lines 2 to 14. These
commands were documented in the previous article used to build the shape of the beam.
Finally the set is closed on line 16 using the setc beam command.
Lines 16 and 17 define the element type and build the mesh. Now that the mesh has been
created the command send beam abq is used to export the mesh created from set beam to
the abq (Abaqus) format. The result of this command will reside in the same directory as the
open .fbd file that created it, the working directory. Its name will be beam.msh. This is simply
a text file describing the nodes and elements one per line as a list. The second to last
command rotates the viewing direction to the -z axis orientation. Finally, on line 20 the
model geometry is fit to the frame of the graphics viewing area. Next hit the F10 key
or Tools->Pre Process to process the batch file. The following window appears and the
mesh file is written to disk.

While processing the batch file cgx creates the beam.msh file in the working directory. Next,
lets examine the contents of the mesh file. The images below show the two most interesting
parts. They are the start of the node and element definitions respectively.
Line number 1 above starts with the command *NODE, NSET=Nbeam which declares the start
of a node list. It also assigns a name to this set of nodes, Nbeam. Grouping together nodes
and elements into logical units is a convenience of management. For example, a boundary
condition can be applied to all the nodes contained within a set. Nodes and their sets can be
defined in a separate mesh file as above or directly within the ccx command input file. The
next lines define the node number and x,y,z position separated by commas.
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In the second image the declaration for the elements is observed on line number 2224. This
command *ELEMENT, TYPE=C3D8, ELSET=Ebeam defines linear 3D bricks with 8 nodes and
groups them in the Ebeam set. In cgx he8 elements turn into C3D8 elements within ccx. The
cgx program is a pre-processor capable of exporting to several different mesh formats and
thus has its own internal naming convention separate from a specific solver. The lines
following the element declaration start with the element number and follow with a list of 8
node numbers that define the 6 sides of the C3D8 brick.
These commands capture the shape and number ordering of the mesh. In order to make it
useful we will need to attach it to an input file for the ccx solver. As input, the ccx solver
requires definition of a batch file with extension .inp. This mesh could have been defined
directly inside of the .inp file with the problem definition commands. However, exporting it
to a separate file is an easier way to deal with dense meshes. Then the entire mesh is inserted
to the .inp file using the *INCLUDE command. To define nodes and elements for a low
resolution mesh the same commands shown in the images above can be written by hand in
an .inp file.
As a rule of thumb, if a Calculix command starts with an * followed by uppercase letters it is
a ccx command. If the letters are lower case without the * then it is a cgx command. In the
above images SciTE isn’t applying source highlights to the .msh file. If this were an .inp file
the commands would be emphasized to stand out from plain text. SciTE uses a lexer with
rules depending on the file extension.
Now that the mesh has been exported it is time to head back into cgx to export some loads
and boundary conditions. This will require selecting some nodes within interactive mode to
create a set. Then the set will be exported using the send command. The send command is a
Swiss army knife of functionality. It is used within cgx to write files to the working
directory. The type of file depends on the exact request and contains pre or post processing
information.

With the beam.fbd file open in cgx issue the following commands to view only the nodes of
the mesh. The commands are shown at the bottom of the image below. There is a black
border in addition to the nodes shown as red dots. This border is not associated with the
mesh but rather the geometric model. It can be toggled on/off using the menu
command Viewing->Toggle Model Edges. In addition the image shown below is being
viewed using the Viewing->DOTS option. This represents the geometry as dots. If you
would rather have it shown filled in with the default gray color choose Viewing->FILL. The
command plot n all is used to display the nodes, n, from the set all. The results should look like
the image below. The rot -z command rotates the view to the -z direction. In this case the
set all contains everything defined in the cgx file, the same result could also be obtained by
using the command plot n beam because beam is the only set meshed thus far.
Now use the mouse buttons to zoom in and focus on the left hand end of the beam as shown
below.

The next task will select the nodes along the left most vertical column adding them to a set
named fixed. This task will be completed in interactive mode. In the batch file
the seta command was used to add items to a set. In this case the qadd command provides a
graphical selection method that can be used interactively with the mouse. This has the
advantage of not needing to know the name of the item in order to select it as a member of a
set. In this case qadd will be used to create a set named fixed containing all of the nodes along
the left hand end. There are 2 columns of nodes at x=0 where each edge is 11 nodes long,
one at z=0 and z=-1. There are 10 element faces between them for a total of 22 nodes. The
same task can be completed in a batch file but it is important to highlight the usefulness of
interactive mode.
Type the command qadd fixed and press the enter button. Move around the mouse cursor and
observe that it has changed to look like the following image. The qadd command will stay
active until the q button is pressed on the keyboard. While it is active the mouse is used to
maneuver the selection rectangle.
At the tip of the mouse pointer is a little rectangle outlined in black. With the qadd command
active the mouse is used to select items like nodes, elements, faces, points, lines, and etc.
The items desired for selection must fall within the bounds of the little black rectangle shown
above. When the rectangle is hovering over the desired object press the keyboard button
corresponding to the item of interest in order to add it to the set. In this case the n button will
be used to select nodes within the bounds of the rectangle. Needless to say the little rectangle
shown above works well for selecting single items, however, for adding items in bulk it will
be necessary to change the size of the selection rectangle.
Fortunately it is quite easy to change the proportions of the rectangle. The r key on the
keyboard is used to define two points of a rectangle which will become the new selection area
for qadd. Simply press the r button and the current cursor position becomes the new location
for a corner of the selection area. Move the mouse in the horizontal and vertical directions
such that it is offset from the previous point. Press the r button again and a new selection
rectangle has been defined. An example of such a rectangle is shown below.
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In order to select all the nodes of the left hand edge the selection area will be made large
enough to encompass the entire edge. In addition there are two selection modes used by
the qadd command. The default selection mode adds one item each time the corresponding
keyboard button is pressed. This works good for selecting one of a particular item with a
small selection rectangle. If the desire is to bulk add all the items located within the selection
rectangle the mode:a should be used. While the qadd command is active press the a button on
the keyboard to active bulk add. The following image shows the larger selection rectangle
and the results of pressing the a button to active mode:a.
Notice above that the selection area is redefined. The dimensions of the cursor selection area
are output on the first two lines following the qadd fixed command in this case. In addition
after pressing the a button the output will show mode:a indicating that bulk add has been
turned on. Now press the n button to select all of the 22 nodes located within the cursor
selection area as shown above. The results of this selection will be shown in the output
window as a numbered list of nodes which were added to the set. This is shown at the bottom
of the following image.
Now that the nodes have been added to the set fixed the qadd command can be quit using
the q button. In order to visualize the nodes contained in the set fixed the view can be
manipulated to look like the following. Changing the color by adding a color character at the
end of the plus or plot command is helpful to confirm the set contains the desired items.
In this case the background has been toggled to black using the menu system
command Viewing->Toggle Background Color. Additionally, some of the view options are
available directly from the keyboard interface which means the menu system can be
bypassed. The command view edge off is equivalent to Viewing->Toggle Model Edges. Next
the plus l beam w command adds the lines from the set beam to the plot in white. These lines are
different from the model edges. The model edges are derived from the solid body. The lines
shown above were used to create the geometry of the beam in the cgx batch file. The model
edges available from the menu system are merely a visualization convenience to help
distinguish edges of a solid body. They are always drawn in black which makes them
difficult to work with on a black background. Adding the lines from the beam set in white
replaces the model edges. The last command issued adds the nodes contained in the new
set fixed. These are plotted in green using the plus n fixed g command.
Now that the nodes for the fixed end of the beam have been grouped together they can be
exported with a boundary condition. In this case each node will be constrained such that
displacements (x,y,z) = 0, that is they are fixed. This is accomplished using the send
command shown in the image below.

The command send fixed abq spc 123 is used to write the boundary condition to a file. In this
case fixed is the name of the set of nodes, abq defines the Abaqus format, spc stands for single
point constraint, and 123 indicates the degrees of freedom to fix. For solid elements each node
has three translational degrees of freedom. In the case of shell or beam elements they will
have 6 degrees of freedom to account for the additional three degrees of rotation about the
node. The user manual documents this functionality in detail.
Notice the output below the send command. The boundary conditions are written to a file
named fixed_123.bou in the working directory. Also notice the output statement ready which
indicates processing of the file has finished. Now cgx is ready for interactive commands from
the keyboard once again. The images below show the interesting parts of the
resulting fixed_123.bou file.
There are two types of boundary conditions in ccx, homogeneous (fixed) and inhomogeneous
(prescribed displacements). In this case a homogeneous boundary condition is defined with
the *BOUNDARY command before the first *STEP command card in the ccx input file. The
format of the output .bou file is straightforward. Each line starts with a node number and is
followed by the degree of freedom which will be fixed. The nodes are listed in ascending
order based on the numeric label. Examination of the above images will show that the list of
nodes repeats three times. Each iteration fixing one degree of freedom. More than one degree
of freedom can be fixed at a time. However, when they are automatically generated by cgx it
will be output as above, with each line fixing a single degree of freedom. For example, the
line of code number 2 above could be changed to 101,1,3 which would fix all three degrees of
freedom 1 thru 3 for node number 101.
The next series of steps will define a distributed pressure load on an element face. Use
the plot f beam command to view the element faces. They are easier to see by using the view
menu to toggle the element edges. Use qadd to select the single element face located at the tip
of the beam such that it will cause a moment about the -z axis when a pressure is applied to
it. The selected face stands out from the yellow in the image below. Use the f button on the
keyboard to add a face with qadd. In this case qadd has been used with the default size
selection rectangle and in single selection mode (mode:a has not been turned on).
There are many loading options available in the Calculix solver. Two basic structural loads
are point loading and facial distributed loading. They are the first two listed in the manual.
Point loading covers the application of a force vector acting on nodes. Distributed facial
loading is the application of pressure to an element face.

Next the send command is used to write a pressure load to the load.dlo file. The send command
is used to output a pressure, pres, with magnitude equal to 10.
The resulting load.dlo file has the following contents within.

Line number 2 defines a load of magnitude 10 applied to the 6th face, P6, of element
number 751. To confirm the correct element has been selected examine the model using
the plot ea beam command. Also, note the Viewing->Toggle Culling Back/Front mode is used
to see inside of the elements. This is necessary because the element labels are hidden behind
the outside faces.
In order to confirm the face selected in the previous step is indeed number 6 it will be
necessary to turn on node number labels and zoom in on the area of element 751.

Next issue the following command to view the order of the nodes for element 751.

Compare this to the element numbering guide shown in the Calculix user manual. Node
numbers 1673, 1674, 1675, 1676 are located on the right hand face at x=100. These node
numbers correspond to 1, 2, 3, 4 in the figure below. This figure has been copied directly
from the Calculix manual. It also contains details for different element shapes. Thus it is
clear to see face 6 consists of nodes 1673, 1676, 1677, 1680 and is located exactly where it
should be.
The other loading method mentioned above occurs at a specific node, point loading. Loading
at a point contrasts with loading a face. When a point is loaded a force vector consisting of
three components for each of the x,y,z directions is applied to it. When a pressure is defined
it is considered to act normal to the element face and is distributed across the surface area. If
the orientation of the face or its area change the corresponding direction and magnitude of the
resulting force will update as well. In the case of point loading the force will be constant in
magnitude and direction as the object changes shape. Use the following commands to define
a new set with the two nodes at the upper right corner of the beam where x=100, y=10 and
z=0 or z=1. These nodes are a member of element 751 shown above.

The first command adds the nodes to a new set. This is followed by a send command to
output the force in the Abaqus format with the vector components (0,-5,0). The
resulting loadnodes.frc file contents are shown in the following image. Each node of the set is
listed with the direction of the applied force and followed by the magnitude.
Now that the mesh, boundary condition, and loading has been defined and exported to files it
will be necessary to write a Calculix solver (ccx) input file (.inp) which includes these
exported files to define the problem. The next article in this series will start by writing an
input file and solving for the results using the finite element method.
Thanks for reading!
-Ty Beede

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Calculix FEA Beam Part 3: Writing an Input File for the

CCX Solver
Posted on January 6, 2011 by mechanicalguy
In this installment of the Calculix beam tutorial focus will shift from pre-processing in cgx to
definition of an input file which will be processed by the ccx solver. The input file describes
the finite element problem as an ordered set of commands with parameters. This article will
examine the composition of an input file for a cantilever beam problem.

Open SciTE and create a new file named beam.inp. This document should be located with the
files from the previous articles. Add the following code from the image below to the newly
created file. Source highlighting is activated when the file is saved with an extension
recognized by SciTE.
This input file defines a cantilever beam with a linear elastic material model, mesh,
distributed load, and fixed left end as described in the previous article. Lets examine the
construction, lines 1 thru 9 compose the model and material definition segment. This lays the
foundation for the next segment which consists of one or many loading steps. This is located
at lines 10 thru 18. Within the step, loading is applied and optionally the results are written to
a file for post-processing. These are the two primary segments of an input file, model and
step. The material part is considered to be a sub-segment of the model definition. Most
commands are segment specific, however, some are interchangeable.

The first two lines of the input file declare a *HEADING where the user can write comments
and notes on the following line. Using this command is different than adding a comment. A
ccx comment can be used to add notes and clarity by using **. Any text following the double
asterisk is considered to be commentary and ignored by the solver. Comments can be used
on their own line or after a command. In contrast, the *HEADING command is used to specify
a line of text that will be reproduced at the top of the output file.
The next command, *INCLUDE, inserts the contents of the file named beam.msh into the input
file. Think of the *INCLUDE command as being analogous to copy and paste. The contents of
the specified file are pasted into the input file at the location where the command was used.
In this case the beam.msh contents are included. This is the previously exported list of node
and element definitions which define the mesh structure. The beam.msh file is self contained
because it has the ccx *NODE and *ELEMENT commands within it. Also, note that the file is
referenced by a relative path and it must be located in the same directory as the input file. An
absolute path can be specified for the included file if it is not located in the working directory.
Next a geometric boundary condition is applied using the *BOUNDARY command and the
contents of the fixed_123.bou are included as the parameters. In contrast to the mesh, this file is
not self contained and must be accompanied by a command preceding the inclusion. The
result ensures displacement at these nodes will be zero in the x, y, and z directions.

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On lines 6 thru 9 the material model is defined. This is a special segment where the
commands are grouped together in order depending on material model. It starts with
the *MATERIAL command and assigns it a name, EL, short for elastic. The next
command, *ELASTIC, defines EL as isotropic linear elastic with two characteristics, the elastic
modulus and Poisson’s ratio. In this case the elastic modulus is 30 x 10^6 psi and Poisson’s
ratio is 0.3. These values are representative of steel with a system of units measured in pound
force, inches, lbf*s^2/in, and seconds. The solver just crunches numbers, the user must make
sure a consistent set of units is used. Examples of consistent units are shown in the table
below.
Next we move along to the the *SOLID SECTION definition which assigns the elastic
material EL to the element set Ebeam. This command is used to assign a material to 3D, plain
stress, plain strain, and axisymmetric element sets. The second line of this command defines
the thickness when not using 3D elements. In this case the set of 3D elements in Ebeam will
now be treated as linear elastic elements with the properties as defined.
English English British Metric Metric
Engineering w/Inches Gravitational / SI w/mm

Lengt
h ft in ft m mm

Mass lbm lbf*s /in

2
slug kg N*s /mm
2

Force lbf lbf lbf N N

Time s s s s s
 Examples of Consistent Sets of Units
Force = Mass * Length / Time 2

This table is provided for reference when working with a consistent set of units. Additional
information for other characteristics like specific heat, conductivity, film coefficient, and
dynamic viscosity are covered in the units portion of the user manual.

At this point the model and material has been defined. It is now ready for a loading step. In
this example only one step is used, however, more than one step can be used if necessary.
The start and stop of a step are indicated by the *STEP and *END STEP commands. In this step
the loading is applied using the *STATIC method. This indicates the force will be slowly
applied in a quasi-static sense. This will neglect the mass inertia of the structure.
Next a distributed load is applied to the tip of the beam. The included file was previously
defined and applies a load of 10 pounds to element 751’s top face. Finally the *NODE
FILE and *EL FILE commands are used to output the desired results to an .frb file. The output
fields are flagged by single characters on the second line. For example U requests the output
of the nodal displacements. The S flag from *EL FILE is used to output the Cauchy (true)
stress extrapolated to the nodal points. In addition there are two other commands which are
similar, *NODE PRINT and *EL PRINT. These commands are used to print the results to
a .dat text file. When using these commands the Cauchy stress is provided at the integration
points of the element. If the file is intended to be post-processed by cgx it is necessary to
choose output as an .frb file. This is accomplished by using the *NODE FILE and *EL
FILE commands.
With the beam.inp file open in SciTE choose Tools->Solve or use the keyboard
shortcut Ctrl+F10 to process this file with ccx. This will solve the finite element model as
defined and output the requested files.
The output of the ccx program will appear in the SciTE output window. It provides detailed
diagnostics information. At the bottom it finishes the job and exits with code 0. This
successful indication means a solution was found and the results have been written to disk.
The ccx output should look like the following image. Progress can be monitored by watching
the output as ccx attempts to find a convergent solution or steps through a number of loading
conditions.
In this case a file named beam.frb has been created in the working directory with the results.
This file can be post-processed in cgx by using the SciTE menu item Tools->Post Process or
using the keyboard shortcut Shift-F10. Using the cgx menu system click on Datasets -> 2
STRESS 1.000000 and then use the menu system again to click on Datasets -> Entity -
> Mises. This will display the Von Mises stress distribution for the solution at step 1. It
should look like the following image.
The next article in this installment will cover using cgx to post process the beam in greater
detail. There are several handy tools available to visualize the results. A couple examples
include displaying the deformed shape and plotting nodal values.

Thanks for reading!

-Ty Beede

Calculix FEA Beam Part 4: Post Processing Results in CGX

Posted on January 10, 2011 by mechanicalguy
The cgx program provides a rich set of functionality for post processing the results
file. This article will explore some of that functionality by examining the results of
the cantilever beam problem from the previous article. The goal of this series of
articles is not to provide an outline for the best practice analysis of a beam. But
rather to educate the reader with respect to the rich functionality available in this
dynamic duo of GPL FEA solvers.

Open the input file beam.inp in SciTE. Choose Tools -> Post Process from the menu
system. This will launch cgx with the beam.frd results file. Note that this is different
from using Tools -> Pre Process in the previous article. In that article the currently
open file was beam.fbd, the cgx batch file. By choosing Pre Process cgx was activated
with the current file as input. This is not the case when using the Post Process menu
option. Choosing to post process will open the file with the same base
name, beam, but with the extension .frd. This way an input file can be adjusted,
solved, an post processed quickly. Also note, the Tools -> Pre Process option opens
up the current file beam.inp and ignores everything except the mesh, which will be
displayed in cgx. If it is necessary to modify the original geometry the beam.fbd batch
file will need to be modified. Obviously if you’re using Linux or Cygwin none of this
need apply, just call the command in the shell.
With the beam.inp file open and the Post Process selection completed the screen
should show the mesh as a gray shaded body with black outline. Use the left mouse
button to bring up the menu system. Notice the menu heading Datasets has been
added to the list. This menu option is only available when working with an .frb file
containing some simulation results.

In this simulation there are two fields available for visualization. They are
displacement and stress. Clicking on one of the menu items at this level will select
the results field of interest. Then the particular information from the field will need
to be specified. This is done by choosing an option from within the -Entity- submenu
will result in a colored plot of the selected field information as shown below.
Now toggle the displacement to visualize the deformed shape. The resulting
displacement from this simulation is quite small. It will not be noticeably visible.
To scale up the displacement use the keyboard command scal d 10000. This will
scale the deformed shape by a factor of 10000. The deformation from this load is
quite small and requires a large scale factor. Each repeated use of the scale
command with a numerical parameter will act as a multiple of the current scale, thus
further exaggerating the deformation. The shape can be returned to the default scale
by using the scal d command without the numerical value.
The viewing mode can be returned to the default gray beam by choosing Viewing-
>Show All Elements With Light. This will exit the currently active visualization. This
command is often used to reset the display to a known state.
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Another option to visualize the shape of the deformed structure is through
animation. This feature will animate the model’s deformation with user specified
scale. Animation can display the real displacements as well. Use the menu system
and select Animate->Start to view the animation. The image below shows the beam
as it oscillates between -100% and 100% of the deformation amplitude.
The following image shows the options available within the animation.

The Tune-Value menu will configure the scale of the animation plot. Steps per
Period will break up the animation into more steps and result in a smoother looking
animation. The Time per Period will allow for adjusted animation length in seconds.
While the animation is playing the middle mouse button can be used to pause it by
clicking in the menu area. Then the right mouse button can advance the animation
one step at a time. To restart the animation use the middle mouse button again.
Also note, after the animation restarts it might be necessary to move your mouse to
refresh the screen. Often times a command will execute and the results will not be
immediately visible. Simply move the mouse without clicking any buttons and the
cgx display will refresh.
In addition a movie can be exported using the movi command. This command uses
an animated GIF to create a saved copy of the animation. The user controls how
many frames of the animation are exported to the final movie. First off the
command movi delay 0.01 is used to establish a default delay between frames of the
animated GIF. Then the movi start command is used to start exporting frames of the
movie. At this point there will be output from cgx showing the creation of individual
frames, convert hcpy_0.tga _1.gif. The animated GIF above has the Animate ->
Steps Per Period value set to 36. This means a total of 36 frames will be written as
individual files to disk. After number 36 comes up on the output log type movi stop.
Now use the command movi make 1 36 to turn the individual files into a single
animated GIF. There will be 36 individual frames in the working directory saved as
GIF files. In addition, there will be a file named movie.gif that was created by the last
command. In order to clean up the individual frames use movi clean to delete the
individual frames from disk. This also readys cgx to export another movie at the
user’s discretion.
The cgx post-processing mode allows the user to specify a cut plane. The plane will
cut through the model and show the field results for the intersection of the model
and plane. The cut plane is defined by three nodes. The nodes can be specified from
the menu system using the Cut menu.
The following image shows the result of cutting the beam top to bottom. The field
shown is the normal stress in the x direction. The results are as we would expect, the
top of the beam is in tension and the bottom is in compression.
In addition values from the different result fields can be plotted to a graph for
interpretation. The graph command is accessible from the menu system
under Graph. The graph is also accessible through the command line. If multiple
graphs will be generated for the same set of nodes it is best to add them to a
sequence. This is accomplished using the qadd graphseq s command to create a new
sequence of points. Note that a sequence is different from a set. A sequence
preserves order information. When using qadd make sure to select nodes one at a
time in the desired order. Bulk add will include nodes according to node number
when used with a sequence. This will put the results out of order on the x-axis when
attempting to graph the nodal values. The following example plots the total
displacement of nodes along the top of the beam at y=10 and z=0. They span along
the x-axis starting at the fixed end and progressing towards the free end. The desired
field for plotting must be the currently active field selected from Datasets. The rot -
z followed by rot u 45 will result in a view of the beam as shown in the following
image. Node number 101 is located at x=0, y=10, z=0. Nodes number 97, 93, 89, …,
continue out in the positive x direction. Also note that the numbers are not in order
with increasing x which causes problems with bulk add if using
the qadd and graph method.

The nodes are selected a few at a time, perhaps three or four, then the tra l
10 command is used to pan the model to the left by translation of 10 units. At which
point another few nodes are selected. This process is repeated as the translation
command moves towards the free end. Then the last nodes are selected and the right
mouse button is used to finish the selection process. Finally, the following graph is
promptly displayed.
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While viewing the colored plot of a results field it is also possible to add the nodal
values. The following images shows top side of the beam’s free end, near x=100, y=0,
z=0. The nodal values are printed in yellow using the commmand plus nv all y.
These values agree with the results of the graph.
The following image shows a reduced set of nodes. These nodes are spaced every 10
units across the top of the beam. Viewing the entire beam is difficult when several
thousand nodal values are print on the screen. Limiting the nodal values to an
interesting set is likely the best use of this tool.
This concludes the four part tour of Calculix articles. This series is intended not to
focus on the results of a specific problem, but rather to highlight the various
functionality within Calculix and serve as a foundation for future articles. Future
articles will delve into specific functionality and examine the application of Calculix.
The functionality outlined in this series will serve as a common denominator
amongst readers. Future articles will document the specific functionality of a
subsystem and rely on this document to provide the foundation.

Thanks for reading!

-Ty Beede