Output Rotation between rigid bodies – Lesson 6

How to obtain the relative rotation between two rigid bodies constrained with a revolute joint in Ansys LS-DYNA® nonlinear dynamics structural simulation software?

In this scenario, a straightforward way to obtain the relative rotation is to define a *CONSTRAINED_JOINT_STIFFNESS_GENERALIZED in conjunction with the *CONSTRAINED_JOINT_REVOLUTE. This will trigger the output of the relative joint rotations in the output file JNTFORC, which can be accessed through Ansys LS-PrePost® capability. To this end, the *CONSTRAINED_JOINT_STIFFNESS_GENERALIZED keyword will only require the definition of the fields in Card 1. The remaining cards can be left blank if no joint stiffness, stop angles, etc. are required.