Output of Element Forces

ELEMENT FORCE outputs are available at the following locations:

The following is a list of the items included in the ELEMENT STRESS output:

Setting	Description
SQX, SQY	Shear stresses (Force/ unit len./thk.)
SX, SY, SXY	Membrane stresses (Force/unit len./thk)
MX, MY, MXY	Bending moments per unit width (Moment/unit len.)
SMAX, SMIN	Principal stresses (Force/unit area)
TMAX	Maximum shear stress (Force/unit area)
ANGLE	Orientation of the principal plane (Degrees)
VONT, VONB	Von Mises stress, where $V M = 0.707 \sqrt{{(S M A X - S M I N)}^{2} + {S M A X}^{2} + {S M I N}^{2}}$
TRESCAT, TRESCAB	Tresca stress, where $T R E S C A = M A X {\begin{matrix} \| S M A X - S M I N \| \\ \| S M A X \| \\ \| S M I N \| \end{matrix}}$

Notes

All element stress output is in the local coordinate system. The direction and sense of the element stresses are explained in Section 2.6.
To obtain element stresses at a specified point within the element, the user must provide the coordinate system for the element. Note that the origin of the local coordinate system coincides with the center node of the element.
Principal stresses (SMAX & SMIN), the maximum shear stress (TMAX), the orientation of the principal plane (ANGLE), the Von Mises stress (VONT & VONB), and the Tresca stress (TRESCAT & TRESCAB) are also printed for the top and bottom surfaces of the elements. The top and the bottom surfaces are determined on the basis of the direction of the local Z-axis.