How are displacements reported in cylindrical coordinate systems?


In ANSYS Release 11.0, displacements are nodal DOFs and are always reported in terms of the nodal coordinate system. In addition, nodal coordinate systems are always Cartesian systems. Nodal coordinate systems cannot be cylindrical systems.

For 3D SOLID elements, ANSYS calculates UX, UY, and UZ Cartesian displacements for every node. Regardless of the results coordinate system, the reported displacements will always be Cartesian displacement values. If the results are rotated into a cylindrical coordinate system UX represents the radial Cartesian displacement and UY represents the tangential Cartesian displacement. So for a cylindrical system, the UY value is not the rotation angle or the arc length (rotation angle multiplied by radial distance). The UY value is the mathematical result of converting the UX and UY global Cartesian values into equivalent Cartesian values based on the local orientation of the specified cylindrical system.





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