[Gmsh] Showing displacement shape of 4-node line element? (for beam element)

Mohamed Moussa mohamed.moussa89 at gmail.com
Tue Dec 11 07:47:27 CET 2012


Hi there,

I am writing an FEA solver for fun (and education) and I am using gmsh
as my post-processor.

Im trying to visualize my beam elements using a 4-node line element in
gmsh. It seems the displacements for the inner nodes are not being
shown in the post-processing view.

Below is a very simple MSH file that I wrote to test. The mesh
consists of one 4-node line with no displacements on either end. The
middle two nodes have a displacement of -0.1. However, I cant see any
displacement shape in gmsh. Any ideas? I have set vector display =
'displacement' in post-processing options so its not that.

$MeshFormat
2.2 0 8
$EndMeshFormat
$Nodes
4
1 0 0 0
2 1 0 0
3 0.33 0 0
4 0.66 0 0
$EndNodes
$Elements
1
1 26 0 1 2 3 4
$EndElements
$NodeData
1
"Displacement"
1
0.0
3
0
3
4
1 0.0 0.0 0.0
2 0.0 0.0 0.0
3 0.0 -0.1 0.0
4 0.0 -0.1 0.0
$EndNodeData