Thiagarajan,

I do not see a Figure 11 for Local F&M in the Technical Reference Manual.

That "fx" in the Local F&M report is the axial force with respect to the pipe. Positve fx is pointing from the From Node and pointing to the To Node. CAESAR II reports element F&M's in pairs - the From Node and the To Node. You should see equal and opposite axial loads on either side of the element.

If fx for the To Node load is positive (and the From Node is negative), the pipe is in tension - your load is directed away from the element. If fx is negative for the To Node (and the From Node is positive), the pipe is in compression - your load is directed towards the element.

You are right, what I posted earlier was incomplete. But if you only consider the To Node, it works just fine.