Supports

Creating new plate supports or changing their properties is performed by Supports definition :

Define fixed support

Define free rotation for support

Define spring values for supoort

Delete supports

When combined with the following geometry design objects in Structure View, loads are applied as area, polyline or point:

Create region (supports on a region)

Create polyline (supports on a polyline)

Create point (supports on a point)

By pressing a button for plate geometry design object to be added, the default boundary condition respectively to the geometry object is generated. For a supported region it is Z(Fixed)/Xr(Fixed)/Yr(Fixed), for a polyline - Z(Fixed)/ Xr(Free)/Yr(Free) and for a point object - Z(Fixed)/Xr(Free)/Yr(Free).

Boundary conditions (supporting conditions) are changed by making appropriate settings to define possible degree of freedom, respectively in Z, Xr and Yr directions. After defining boundary conditions of supports they can be applied to selection.

Boundary conditions placed on some plate geometry design objects of supports like region, polyline, or point after the meshing process will strictly keep their placement in the boundary of these objects.

An exact placement(s) of the support(s) inside the geometry design objects during the calculation stage highly depends on a quality of the mesh, while boundary conditions during calculation stage are applied on mesh vertexes.

A direction of restrictions on degrees of freedom is positioned in a direction of a global axis.

Supports properties are also displayed in "Plate definition" tree ("Supports" branch):

Region - refers to the designed region of the plate containing a unique boundary condition set. The region itself is described in the lower branch(es) of the "Supports" tree;
Label – refers to the unique boundary conditions set of a support;
Type – refers to plate geometry design object type (region, polyline or point) on what boundary condition is applied;
Z-rest. – refers to the boundary condition of a support in a global Z direction. It could be defined as "fixed", "free" or some value as 0 < value < 1e111, defining elastic spring;
Xr-rest. – refers to the boundary condition of a support in a global Xr direction. It could be defined as "fixed", "free" or some value as 0 < value < 1e111, defining elastic spring;
Yr-rest. – refers to the boundary condition of a support in a global Yr direction. It could be defined as "fixed", "free" or some value as 0 < value < 1e111, defining elastic spring.

Right mouse click on selected "Supports" tree branch header allows to insert new support region. The objects of polylines and points are described as subset of a region.

Lower level of main "Supports" tree branch is used to estimate/change coordinates for every vertex of a support region, polyline or point. Vertexes are sequentially listed it the table to define regions, polylines or points to which the supports are assigned.

The selected support reference label in the "Supports" tree allows to remove support objects with their boundary conditions through the context menu (right mouse click). The selected vertex(es) in the table allows to delete or insert new vertexes through the context menu (right mouse click).

Coordinates of vertex(es) are defined in the global coordinate system referenced to X=0 and Y=0 point.

Plate definition: supports (coordinates)

Table of coordinates is supporting clipboard copy/paste functionality.