CCX 3-node beam *BEAM GENERAL SECTION,MATERIAL=EL,ELSET=Eall,SECTION=PIPE

Tim_Gowing

Victor,
I'm building a mixed solid/beam model to run in Calculix (I appreciate that beam elements are expanded to solid elements internally within Calculix).
Calculix 2.10 requires a 3-node beam element, B32R, to be defined for use with the *BEAM GENERAL SECTION,SECTION=PIPE option.

*ERROR reading *BEAM GENERAL SECTION:
*BEAM GENERAL SECTION can
only be used for B32R elements.

If I create line3 elements, the option to define geometric properties is greyed-out. I proceeded to create line2 elements and applied circular tube geometric properties. The ccx definition written for the beam elements was *BEAM SECTION,SECTION=PIPE, although the SECTION=PIPE option is not valid for *BEAM SECTION and should instead be used with *BEAM GENERAL SECTION.
Can the line3 element be activated for ccx usage?
Regards, Tim

Victor

Good point. It's using the Abaqus format with *BEAM SECTION but should be *BEAM GENERAL SECTION for CCX as you say. In the mean time, you would have to define this section type manually using custom model definition in Mecway.

Tim_Gowing

Victor,
Thank you for looking into this aspect. Can the 3-node line element be available for ccx in a future release?
Tim