What is the difference between displacement and deformation?

- July 31, 2020 at 4:41 pm
  
  Samir Kadam
  Ansys Employee
  
  What is the difference between displacement and deformation?
- July 31, 2020 at 4:42 pm
  
  Dragana Jandric
  Forum Moderator
  
  In Continuum Mechanics, Displacement is often referred as rigid body displacement where the body moves, but does not stretch or deform in any way. Deformation on the other hand, refers to the bending, twisting and stretching behavior of the body which introduce stresses in it.
- March 23, 2023 at 1:38 pm
  
  Tim Dietl
  Subscriber
  
  But how can you measure deformation without the displacement problem?
- March 24, 2023 at 1:20 am
  
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  
  Strain is a local measure of deformation calculated for each element. This is different from how far the nodes of the element moved from their original coordinates, which is the definition of deformation. Displacement is the term for a boundary condition on nodes where the direction and distance to move nodes is input. Deformation is computed as a solution for the unknown movement of the nodes.