Overview
Flexcom now provides advanced user subroutines, denoted as ‘user solver variables’ to distinguish from legacy features, which provide much greater flexibility and control. The user is empowered by the ability to access a range of solution variables including nodal kinematic variables (displacements, velocities, accelerations) and elemental restoring forces (effective tension, bending moment, curvature, torque etc.). Equipped with this information it is then possible to directly augment the global force vector to simulate an arbitrary time-varying load. It is even possible to directly modify the constitutive finite element matrices (i.e. stiffness and mass) should you have very specialised modelling requirements. Naturally this requires some programming expertise, but it provides complete generality for power users. Some illustrative examples are provided to help upskill users and demonstrate the potential of this powerful modelling feature.
Relevant Keywords
•*USER SOLVER VARIABLES provides advanced Flexcom users with the ability to define custom code for increased modelling flexibility.
The DLL subroutine interface is defined in the Subroutine Format section. If you would like to see an example of how this keyword is used in practice, refer to J04 - User Solver Variables.
