Reply To: Representation of a property(for example Hardness) in the ansys post processing.

[mjmiddle]

Native methods:

Are you trying to use these hardness values as an input to analysis? Or are you just trying to make a contour display of them? If you just want a contour display, you can import the data with "External Data." You can select the quantity type as anything, such as temperature, just to get a contour display. The contour will read a wrong title, thinking they are temperature values, but you can gnore that. And you won't want to solve with this load. An APDL command could use *vread and *vput to replace the data into an uninteresting result quantity, then you can use a User Defined Result in Mechanical to specify that result quantity from the result file. The title will still read as a different result quantity than you know it is.

Or you can just replace the temperature data column with the hardness data in your CSV file. In a User Defined Result, you can set the "Source" to "Import File."

Of course, this will also read a wrong title, but you'll ge the contours you want. This method will only accept a file that contains the exact titles and columns and format (tab delimited) you would get when you export a result to a text file. But you can replace the data in the temperature column.

Any native method you choose is going to be non-ideal, because you'll have to accept the wrong title above the result legend. 

Another option may be to use some other contour plotting software with scripting to read in a grid and plot values such as python matplotlib.

Or if you want to script the behavior entirely, and have the correct result title, you can do that with a "python result" or a result created in an ACT extension.

In Ansys help, go to "Mechanical Application > Mechanical Users' Guide > Using Results > Python Result."
https://ansyshelp.ansys.com/account/secured?returnurl=/Views/Secured/corp/v241/en/wb_sim/ds_python_result.html

To get started with ACT extensions, there is an Introduction to ACT in Mechanical in the Ansys Learning Hub:

https://www.ansys.com/services/ansys-learning-hub