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[edtelli]

Hello everybody,

I am new to this forum, so I am sorry if I do any mistakes here.

I need to define element coordinate system for each element in my analysis so I can orient the material properties along a curved path. I`ve read this can be done "easily" using ACP in workbench or using ANSYS discovery AIM or with Hypermesh, but I couldn`t find any content related to APDL programmming and I need my code to be parametrized so that's why I want to keep using APDL.

So, to orient the material properties along the curved path I came up with the idea of creating a DO loop that goes through every solid element, select nodes T, R and X (according to picture below, and they must obbey certain convention, right?) and with these nodes, create a local coordinate system for the element using CS command. Since the element will be deformed by the curved mesh then it would work to align the properties this way, the only problem I find is how can I select these specific nodes for every element...

[edtelli]

Found an useful document about this subject that solved my doubts (altough I did not yet applied in practice).

[Aniket]

Does your model contain layered sections? If not you can use Mechanical and the inbuilt feature https://ansyshelp.ansys.com/account/Secured?returnurl=/Views/Secured/corp/v212/en/wb_sim/ds_element_orientation.html
-Aniket
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[edtelli]

It does not since I insert the material properties already from the full laminate pack.

Thanks, that was very helpful. =)