Point Load, Free

Add a node to describe concentrated loads with locations specified by coordinates. Such loads do not have to be placed in a geometrical point or in a mesh node. This is particularly useful for the following cases:

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Moving loads

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Several point loads, in which case it may be impractical to create points at all load locations

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For each free point load, there will be a search for the mesh element that is closest to the given location. For the load to be active, the location must be within a certain small distance from at least one element. The actual load location is taken as the point on the element that is closest to the given location. If no element is found, the load is silently ignored.

You can check the number of loads that were ignored through the variable <phys>.<load_tag>.num_ignored, for example beam.plf1.num_ignored.

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The local stress field in the element where a point load acts will not be reliable.

Location and Force

For each row in the table, enter the data for one load. If material frame input is used, then the location is specified in terms of the material coordinates (, , ). If spatial frame input is used, then the spatial coordinates (, , ) are used. Then, enter the force and moment values, , , , , and . The force and moment vectors are interpreted in the coordinate system selected in the section.

Linear Buckling

To display this section, click the button (

) and select in the dialog box.

If you are performing a linear buckling analysis with a combination of live and dead loads, select the check box to indicate that the load contributions from this node are constant. The default is that a load is proportional to the load factor.


	For more information about live and dead loads, see Buckling Analysis.

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You can specify this load to be a Harmonic Perturbation in a frequency domain analysis.

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You can assign this load to a load group. See Load Cases in the Structural Mechanics Modeling chapter.


	Pratt Truss Bridge: Application Library path Structural_Mechanics_Module/Beams_and_Shells/pratt_truss_bridge

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