Body Loads

Body loads comprise forces that are distributed over a solid volume. Probably the most familiar of these is the gravitational force acting on a mass to give it weight.

Body loads are applied by connecting to the volumetric loads input on the Intact.Simulation stress solver component. When several body loads are applied simultaneously, the simulation sums their contributions.

Gravitational loads simulate the structural effects of a body's self-weight. For gravitational loads, “up” from the center of the Earth is the +Z direction.

The gravitational load requires no input.

Rotational body loads simulate the effect of a body rotating around an axis. Two contributions are considered in a rotational body load: angular velocity, angular acceleration. The angular velocity term simulates the centrifugal effects that tend to throw a body's material away from the axis of rotation. The angular acceleration term simulates the effect of a rotational acceleration field around the axis of rotation. A positive angular acceleration tends to drag the body's material in the positive rotational direction according to the right-hand rule.

A rotational body load has 3 inputs:

• A: axis of rotation
• V: angular velocity (in radians/sec)
• Acc: angular acceleration (in radians/sec²)

Linear acceleration loads are specified by entering the components of a linear acceleration vector field in which the body is immersed. The material in the body will tend to be pulled in the direction of the acceleration vector.

The inputs to the acceleration field are:

• V: the direction of the acceleration field (a vector)
• Acc: the magnitude of acceleration in units of length/s²