Defining Morphing Areas

A morphing area (MORPH_AREA) is a node group, which will be modified independently of other morphing areas during the morphing process. All nodes in one morphing area obtain the same morphing displacement in one morphing step.

This task shows you how to:

See Also
In Other Guides
MORPH
MORPH_AREA

Define Morphing Areas in Tosca Structure.gui.

  1. Choose Command > MORPH_AREA.
  2. In the MORPH_AREA dialog, select the corresponding node group (predefined at the command GROUP_DEF) and enter the number of transition zones as shown in the following figure:

SIMULIA Tosca Structure Parameter File

The command appears as follows: 


MORPH_AREA
 ID_NAME         = <MORPH_AREA_name>   [string]
 ND_GROUP        = <MORPH_AREA_nd_goup> [string]
 TYPE            = NORMAL | VECTOR
 CS              = <CS_name>   [string]
 VEC_DIR         = <x>, <y>, <z>
 TRANSITION_ZONE = <number_of_transition_nodes> [integer]
END_
  • For every morph area, the nodes specified by ND_GROUP can be moved either in normal direction (TYPE=NORMAL) or in a distinct direction (TYPE=VECTOR).
  • The latter enables Tosca Structure.morph to move, for example, holes or groups of nodes into the same direction.
  • The parameters CS and VEC_DIR are used to specify direction.
  • The direction VEC_DIR is interpreted as a vector in the coordinate system CS, which is CS_0 by default.
  • The main purpose of the CS is to support movements in cylindrical coordinate systems and thus, only rectangular and cylindrical ones are supported.