Mechanical APDL Basic Analysis Guide

2. Perform the desired arithmetic operations using commands from the CALC module (SADD,SMULT,
   SEXP, etc.).


3. Review the outcome of the operations using PRETAB (Main Menu> General Postproc> Element
   Table> List Elem Table) or PLETAB (Main Menu> General Postproc> Element Table> Plot Elem
   Table).

A discussion of the element table appears earlier in this section. The ETABLE command moves specified
results data for all selected elements into the element table. One value is stored per element. For example,
if you select 10 elements and issue the command shown below, an average UX value is calculated for
each element from the nodal displacements and stored in the element table under the "ABC" column.

ETABLE,ABC,U,X

The element table will be ten rows long (because only ten elements were selected). If you now want
to double these displacements, the command would be:

SMULT,ABC2,ABC,,2

For further information, see the SMULT command description in the Command Reference.

The element table now has a second column, labeled ABC2, containing twice the values in column ABC.
To list the element table, simply choose PRETAB (Main Menu> General Postproc> Element Table>
List Elem Table).

Sample Output from PRETAB

PRINT ELEMENT TABLE ITEMS PER ELEMENT

***** POST1 ELEMENT TABLE LISTING *****

STAT CURRENT CURRENT

ELEM ABC ABC2

1 .21676 .43351

11 .27032 .54064

21 .23686 .47372

31 .47783 .95565

41 .36171 .72341

51 .36693 .73387

61 .13081 .26162

71 .50835 1.0167

81 .35024 .70049

91 .25630 .51260

MINIMUM VALUES

ELEM 61 61

VALUE .13081 .26162

MAXIMUM VALUES

ELEM 71 71

VALUE .50835 1.0167

Another example of arithmetic operations is to calculate the total volume of selected elements. To do
this, you might store all element volumes in the element table, select the desired elements, and sum
them using the SSUM command:

ETABLE,VOLUME,VOLU! Store element volumes (VOLU) as VOLUME

ESEL,...! Select desired elements

SSUM! Calculate and print sum of VOLUME column

See the ETABLE,ESEL, and SSUM command descriptions for further information.

Release 15.0 - © SAS IP, Inc. All rights reserved. - Contains proprietary and confidential information

Additional POST1 Postprocessing