How to change BEAM188 Line Bodies into LINK180 Elements in ANSYS Mechanical Workbench

Multiple line bodies cannot have multiple end releases at a shared vertex. To treat the ends of beams as released in all rotations at a shared vertex when those beams are in a single line body, converting the BEAM188 elements of the line body into LINK180 elements can provide a workaround. LINK180 elements have only UX, UY and UZ degrees of freedom, and at their nodes, act as if joints are spherical. This video illustrates an approach based on a few APDL commands, and reviews resulting Force, Area and Axial Stress values with User Defined Results.
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[@mohammadaljomaa5397]

Thank you very much for this Video. It helped me modelling the elements of a truss construction which are pin-pointed at the end of the elements

[@geoffreyhuang3494]

Thank you very much!!!!! Your video have solve my problem very well~~~~~

[@peterbudgell7339]

Glad to hear it worked!

[@Alzexza]

Thanks for the video. I keep coming back to it. Are the APDL commands in text anywhere?

[@martinofigoni6460]

*get,myarea,SECP,matid,PROP,AREA ET,matid,180 SECTYPE,matid,LINK SECDATA,myarea

[@pedrocarneiro7609]

The beam188 element is substituted by link180 only in the beam ends or is in the all lenght?

[@SimuTechGroup]

Hi Pedro, feel free to drop us a note at [e-mail] if you're interested in our consulting services and we'd be more than happy to help! Otherwise there is the Ansys student community to find posts/articles: studentcommunity.ansys.com/

[@jaimechirinos4538]

If There are several elements which One need to change(BEAM188 to LINK180), Is there a faster way to do it instead of writing for each of the elements the same COmmand?

[@peterbudgell7339]

If you put all of the line bodies that are to be converted from BEAM!88 to LINK180, then you could write a *DO loop to go through them, changing each. Consider the ACT object from the ANSYS ACT store to see if that would be easier.

[@nimadabiri]

Is there any way to implement quadratic and/or cubic shape functions for BEAM188 element in ANSYS Workbench?

[@georgekr2592]

Trying to do this, however, I persistently get the same error. That "LINK is not a valid type for SECID 13". Does anyone know what I can do?

[@JT-91]

How would one define tapered beam188 in ansys workbench

[@SimuTechGroup]

Hi JT- you can send a note to [e-mail] if you are interested in consulting or you can check out the Ansys student portal at www.ansys.com/academic

[@gauravtaranekar]

how to determine the strain in link180 element? is there any command for it?

[@desertelang]

ESEL,s,sec,,1 ! Select Link180 elements type (example Element Type ID = 1) inistate,SET,CSYS,-2 inistate,SET,DTYPE,EPEL ! Pre-Strain inistate,define,,,,,Strain_value ! Set value

[@inkwizytor84]

Is it possibile to create curved LINK180, to simulate a cord (rope). ?

[@peterbudgell7339]

If you have a curved line body, you could mesh it with a large number of short BEAM188 elements, then convert to LINK180. The long chain of LINK180 elements could approximate rope behavior, although it would have zero bending strength. It might be too stiff in the longitudinal direction, too. For tension-only behavior, you could create a spring connection, and use one of the Details of the spring object to make it be tension-only. You enter the spring stiffness yourself.