Contour plots of boundary conditions

Use the Boundary Condition Contour Plot command to generate a contour plot of most types of loads, constraints, and solver-specific simulation objects that contain a value. You can use these contour plots to verify your loading conditions, to generate high-quality visualizations for reports or presentations, and to interrogate and extract loading data. You can analyze a single boundary condition or several boundary conditions together.

Plotting boundary conditions

You can plot a single boundary condition by selecting it from an appropriate Simulation Navigator container and choosing Plot Contours.

Or, you can right-click your solution and choose Plot Boundary Condition Contours. The Boundary Condition Contour Plot dialog box lists the plottable boundary conditions in the active solution or step. You select a boundary condition from the list as the seed item. The remaining boundary conditions that are compatible with the seed item are available to be selected. The incompatible boundary conditions are displayed in red and are unavailable.

Using post-processing commands

After you generate the contour plot, you can use the post-processing commands on the Results tab to view and interrogate your loading conditions. For example, you can:

• Use Edit Post View to modify the loading display.

• Use Identify Results to probe loading values at nodes and write them to a spreadsheet or comma-separated-value (CSV) file.

Top: A parametric spatially varying pressure load. Bottom: The same load as a spherical marker plot.

Using Identify to probe pressure values at nodes.

About the display of force, moment, bearing, and torque loads

For most boundary conditions, the software displays a Smooth contour plot. Smooth contour plots can be created only when there is mid node information.

By default, force, moment, bearing, and torque loads are plotted with the Spheres color display. These are point loads, and they accumulate, unlike loads such as pressures and temperatures, which are distributions. Therefore, the individual loads of this type must sum to the total applied load. To apply the load smoothly, the software uses element shape functions to calculate each node’s contribution to the total load. For some element types, the element shape function dictates that a load of 0 is often applied at element mid nodes, with the entire load applied at corner nodes.

Note:

If a boundary condition is defined on nodes that do not belong to the same element, element face, or element edge, the Smooth color display may produce fewer display symbols than expected (or none). In this case, you can switch to Spheres display manually.

Example of force load Spheres contour plot

Specifying evaluation points for time, frequency, and temperature varying boundary conditions

When a boundary condition that varies with time, frequency, or temperature is included in a solution that varies according to the same independent domain, the contour plot displays the spatial distribution of the boundary condition magnitude.

When a time, frequency, or temperature varying boundary condition is included in a solution that varies over a different independent domain than the boundary condition, the software evaluates the plotted boundary condition using the Evaluation Time, Evaluation Frequency, and Evaluation Temperature values that you define in the Boundary Condition Control Variables for the solution or the active subcase.

You can override these values in the Evaluation Points group, and enter different evaluation points for the magnitude properties of the plotted boundary condition.

Animating a contour display

You can animate the contour display for boundary conditions that vary with these quantities:

• Frequency

• Heat Flow

• Mass Flow

• Pressure

• Temperature

• Temperature Difference

• Thermal Capacitance

• Time

• Velocity

• Volume Flow

In the Boundary Condition Contour Plot dialog box, after adding a boundary condition to the Selected Boundary Conditions, from the Plot Type list, choose Animation.

When you animate a boundary condition contour display, you can define the range of the animation, including the start and stop values (such as start and stop time), and the number of animation frames. The initial values for the animation range come from the active solution and step, if the software can infer that information; otherwise, the range defaults to [0; 1] with 100 frames.

When you plot multiple boundary conditions together that have different independent variables, you must choose the independent variable that defines the range of the animation.

Where do I find it?

Application	Pre/Post
Prerequisite	A Simulation file containing one or more loads, constraints, and/or solver-specific simulation objects that contain a value
Simulation Navigator	Right-click one or more loads, constraints, or solver-specific simulation objects → Plot ContoursRight-click the solution node → Boundary Condition Contour Plot

How do I

Modify the boundary conditions display

Generate contour plots of boundary conditions

Generate XY plots of boundary conditions

Learn more

Displaying boundary conditions

Highlighting geometry associated with boundary conditions

XY plots of boundary conditions

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Pre/Post video examples

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Contour plots of boundary conditions, Simcenter 3D 2021.1 Series

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