Local Displacements

Is there a way we can have Caesar generate a displacement report in the local coordinates?

This information would be useful for evaluating universal expansion joints that are skewed or axial & lateral movements of supports.

As of the moment, I am only using COADE's Global to Local Transformation tool. But this is too cumbersome to input each nodes just to get the local equivalents...

thanks

No the software won't do this. The reason is that displacements are "nodal" values and as such don't have local coordinates. Only elements have local coordinates.

So to accomplish what you want, and interface would have to be designed (with the supporting background computations) to permit you to say:

"give me the displacements of node "b" in the local coordinate system of element 'a-b' "

This would be necessary in the instance where node "b" is shared by more than one element - say a bend or a tee.

I believe the reason is the same with at why there is no report for local restraint report. Since it will be tedious to which local element coordinate one node will be applied if the node connecting two elements which change in direction at that node...CMIW