Hello,

I'm modeling an expansion joint failure in CAESAR 2 using Time History analysis. I used BOSFluids to generate time dependent loads and imported that into the dynamic analysis. That all seemed to work fine and I now have a very pretty animation of the event.

I have a couple of questions:

1) Is there anyway to manually set the scale of the dynamic animation viewer? In the beginning of the animation (500 ms before the event) it shows totally wacko plots because the displacements are so small (~0.001) and it tries to generate its own scaling factor. When the actual event starts it looks fine.

2) Is there anyway I can export specific nodal displacements for the entire simulation time? It looks like I can only view maximum displacements or displacements at the last time step. The expansion joint clearly failed from squirm, so I need to analyze all the displacements and see if any multiaxial movements in combination with pressure surges exceeded the rating of the expansion joint.

Thanks!

Benjamin P. L. Turner, P.E.

Yes you can export the nodal displacements (and forces & moments), from the Animation Viewer. From the "Action" menu, select "Export Time History Data". This will create a text file with a ".tout" suffix.

You can use this file directly, or import it into Excel for further manipulation.