Spring Foundation

Use the node to apply elastic and damping boundary conditions on the material layers (on boundaries, edges, and points) of a layered shell. For applying spring conditions on an interface, see Spring Foundation, Interface.

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When the selection is a boundary, the a volumetric spring is added to the selected layers

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When the selection is an edge, a spring per area is added to the faces of the layers at the edge.

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When the selection is a point, a spring is added to the layer edges in the through-thickness direction for the selected layers.

By adding the Predeformation subnode, you can prescribe that the spring force is zero at a nonzero spring extension.

Shell Properties

Select the material layers to which the spring condition is to be applied.

Table 6-48: Layer Selections; Spring Foundation
Selection	Use All Layers	Selection of Individual Layers
Boundary, Edge, Point	Same as interface selection when the node is added.	When Use all layers is not selected. Only a subset of the layers selected in the physics interface can be selected.

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All other settings for the node are described in the documentation for Spring Foundation in the Solid Mechanics interface.

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For more information about the use of springs, see Springs and Dampers in the Structural Mechanics Modeling chapter.

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For a theoretical background, see Spring Foundation and Thin Elastic Layer in the Structural Mechanics Theory chapter.

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For a general description of layer and interface selections, see The Shell Properties and Interface Selection Sections.

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You can activate and deactivate this boundary condition by assigning it to a constraint group. See Load Cases in the Structural Mechanics Modeling chapter.

Location in User Interface

Context Menus

Ribbon

Physics tab with selected: