Simulation for Designers - Part 5

Simulation for Designers - Part 5

Simulation for Designers - Part 5

Corner (Nodal) Results

Nastran In-CAD provides the ability to display stress results using either corner or centroidal results. It is important to note this does not apply to displacement results. In this article we will concentrate on corner stress plots with average being the default stress plot. Stress Analysis by its very nature provides an approximation of the real-world problem by breaking it down into finite elements as shown below

At each element corner (junction) there is more than result from adjoining elements as illustrated below @ node B. Within Nastran In-CAD you can select whether you want to see the maximum value from all the adjoining elements or the average of all the values at the node.

So, if we look @ Node B we can have any of the following values displayed

Maximum option             8.574

Minimum option              7.183

Average option (8.574+7.207+7.183+7.309)/4 = 7.568


In an ideal world to obtain convergence in results, in addition to running analyses 3 times, we should expect the difference between minimum and maximum results to also be within 10% in the area of interest. The reason I mention area of interest is that there may be scenarios when the location of the maximum or minimum value may not be in the same location most likely due to stress singularities. The difference between maximum and minimum results will reduce as the mesh size gets smaller and smaller.

I hope you find this article useful, in my next blog I will talk about centroidal results.

NB: If you cannot wait and would like to learn more about Nastran In-CAD now then I would recommend the 'Up and Running with Autodesk Nastran In-CAD 2019' book available from Amazon worldwide.

If you would to watch some of the videos I have created around Autodesk Simulation then please take a look at our Simulation webinar library.


Nyheter i AutoCAD 2027

20 mai 2026

AutoCAD 2027 introduserer nye verktøy som forbedrer samarbeid, tegnenøyaktighet og produktivitet. Nyhetene omfatter blant annet integrasjon med Autodesk Forma for datahåndtering, verktøy for geometrirensing (Geometry Cleanup) samt en AI‑basert Autodesk Assistant. I denne guiden fremhever vi de viktigste oppdateringene i Autodesk 2027 og forklarer hvordan de støtter mer effektive og sammenkoblede arbeidsflyter for design‑ og prosjekteringsteam.

Nyheter i Autodesk Vault 2027

20 mai 2026

Den nye versjonen av Autodesk Vault Professional 2027 inneholder forbedret håndtering av properties, sterkere connectivity til PLM og introduksjon av en AI‑assistent.