-Engineering Data: An application of the Workbench GUI. Material Properties are the most common type of engineering data.

Loads and boundary conditions also can be stored

as engineering data.
-Finite Element: A small portion of a problem domain. Its geometry is so simple that the governing equations can be preformulated in terms of discrete nodal degrees of freedom.
-Design Modeler: An application of the Workbench GUI. Its is similar to any other feature-based CAD software, except that it is specifically used to create geometric models for
use in the ANSYS Workbench simulations.
-Governing Equations: A set of equations governing the behavior of an engineering system (structural system), usually in a form of differential equations.
-APDL: Ansys Parametric Design Language. A set of text commands to drive Ansys software.
-Isotropic Elasticity: In Engineering Data, this term is used for materials whose stress-strain relation can be described by Hookes law and characterized by two material parameters:
Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio.
-Finite Element Mesh: A collection of elements and nodes
-Finite Element Model: A finite element mesh plus its environment conditions
-Degree of Freedom: In the finite element methods, a term used for the discrete nodal values. In Workbench, structural simulations they are nodal displacements. In 3D, the
number of degrees of freedom is 3 times the number of nodes.
-First-Order Element: If linear polynomials are used as shape functions, the element is called a first-order element, or a lower-order element, in which nodes are on the vertices of
the element.
-Boundary Conditions: Conditions applied on the boundaries or interior of a finite element mesh.
-Environment Conditions: Conditions applied on the boundaries or interior of a finite element mesh.
-Free boundaries: Boundaries that are free of boundary conditions. ANSYS assumes a zero pressure (stress normal to the surface) on a free boundary.
-Buckling: When the compression in a structure is large enough such that its lateral stiffness vanishes, the structure becomes unstable, or buckled.
-Failure Criteria of Materials: For a brittle material, it fails if the maximum principal stress reaches the fracture stress. For a ductile material, Tresca criterion or von Mises criterion
may be used. The Tresca criterion states that the material fails if the stress intensity reaches the yield stress. The von Mises criterion states that the material fails if the von Mises
stress reaches the yield stress.
-Degenerated Element: A 3D solid element, hexahedral in its natural shape, may combine some of its nodes to form a triangle-based prism, quadrilateral-based pyramid, or
tetrahedron; they are called degenerated elements. A 2D solid element, quadrilateral in its natural shape, may degenerate to a triangle.
-Ductile Materials: If the strain is large before it is stretch up to fracture, the material is said to be ductile. The fracture is mostly due to a shear failure. There is usually an obvious
yield point in its stress-strain curve.
-Brittle Materials: If the strain is small before it is stretched up to fracture, the material is said to be brittle. The fracture is mostly due to a tensile failure. There is usually no obvious
yield point in its stress-strain curve.
-Dynamic Simulations: Structural simulations in which dynamic effects are included.
-Displacement: The displacement of a particle in a deform body is the vector connecting from its initial position to its final position.
-Workbench GUI: A gateway to ANSYS applications, including Project Schematic, Engineering Data, DeisgnModeler, Mechanical, Design Exploration, etc.
-Stress State: Stress state, of a point in a body, in a certain direction, or face, is a vector describing the stretch and twist in that direction. The vector can be decomposed into two
components: one that is normal to the face and one that is parallel to the face.
-Strain State: Strain state, of a point in a body, is a group of values describing the stretch and twist in all directions. IN 3D, three independent directions are needed to complete
the description.
-Stress: the stress at a certain point is the force per unit area acting on the boundary surfaces of an infinitesimally small body centered at that point.
-Node: Nodes are portions of an element that overlap with other elements. The overlapping implies that the elements share the same degrees of freedom values on the nodes.
-Stiffness Matrix: The matrix that describes the linear relation between displacement vector and the force vector. Physical meaning of the ith column is the forces required on each
of DOFs to maintain a unit displacement on the ith DOF and zero displacements on the other DOFs.
-Shape Functions: In finite element methods, shape functions are used as interpolating functions to calculate continuous displacement fields from discrete nodal displacements.
Linear and quadratic polynomials are commonly used as shape functions.
-Second-Order Element: If quadratic polynomials are used as shape functions, the element is called a second-order element, or a higher-order element, in which nodes are on the
vertices as well on the middle of the edges.
-Principal Stress: At a point in a body, different directions have different stress values. There exist directions in which the normal components are in their extremities and the shear
components vanish; the directions and the corresponding normal stresses are called the principal directions and the principal stresses. In 3D, there are 3 principal stresses, it is
often used in a criterion for a brittle material; when the maximum principal stress is larger than the fracture strength, the material fails.
-Von Mises Stress: It is used in von Mises failure criterion for a ductile material: when the von Mises stress is larger than the yield strength, it is equivalent to saying that the
distortion strain energy density is larger than the yielding distortion strain energy density, thus, the material fails.
-Stiffness: The stiffness of a structure is the forces required to deform the structure.
-Stress Stiffening: The phenomenon that, when a structure member is subject to a tensile stress, its lateral stiffness increases with the increase of tensile stress
-Project Schematic: An application of the Workbench GUI. Its function is to lay out simulation systems and their data flows.
-Linear Simulations: When the responses of a system are linearly proportional to the loads, it is called a linear system and the simulation is called a linear simulation.
-Element Convergence Study: The study of how the finite element solutions approach to theoretical values as the mesh is getting finer. In 2D, quadrilateral elements converge
faster than triangular. In 3Dm the order of convergence speeds are, from faster to slower, hexahedral, prism, pyramid, and tetrahedral.
-Plane Strain Problem: In a structural simulation problem, if all the strains in a direction, say Z-direction, vanish, the problem can be reduced to a 2D problem, and is called a plane
strain problem. (THICK MEMBERS)
-Plane Stress Problem: In a structural simulation problem, if all the stresses in a direction, say Z-direction, vanish, the problem can be reduced to a 2D problem, and is called a
plane stress problem. (THIN MEMBERS)
-Adaptive Meshing: An automatic and iterative solution process to meet a user-specified solution accuracy. The basic idea is to refine the mesh size in the area of large structural
errors until the specified accuracy is satisfied.
-Bearing Load: In 3D simulations, a bearing load applies on cylindrical faces. The total force is distributed on the compressive side of the cylindrical faces.
-MultiZone Method: A meshing method. For a non-sweepable 3D solid body, the method tries to decompose the body into several sweepable bodies and then uses Sweep method
to mesh each body.
-Coordinate System: Cartesian or Cylindrical
-Shell Elements: A shell element is a planar (2D) element that can be arranged in the 3D space. It is used to mesh a body when one of its dimensions is much smaller than the other
two dimensions. Each node has 6 degrees of freedom: 3 translational and 3 rotational. Due to the presence of rotational degrees of freedom, it is very efficient to model the
problems dominated by the out-of-plane bending modes, contrasting to a solid element, which does not have rotational degrees of freedom.
-Beam Elements: A beam element is a line (1D) element that can be arranged in the 3D space. It is used to mesh a body when two of its dimensions are much smaller than the
third dimension.
-Truss: A truss is defined as a structure consisting of two-force members. By two-force member, we mean that the members are pin-jointed at the ends, and the loads apply on
the joints so that the members are either stretched or compressed but not bent.
-Hex Dominant Method: A mesh control method. It meshes a body with Patch Conforming method first and then combines tetrahedra to form hexahedra. It usually leaves some
tetrahedra that cannot be combined to form hexahedra.
-Patch Conforming Method: A mesh control method. It meshes all the faces of the body with triangles; the triangles then grow inward to create tetrahedra. In this way the
shapes of the faces are respected (preserved).
-Patch Independent Method: A mesh control method. It creates tetrahedra from inside out. The outermost nodes are then projected onto the boundary faces and the element
edges are created. In this way, the meshs outline may be different from the original geometry.
Surface Body VS. Thin Solid Body A surface body will be meshed with shell elements, while a thin solid body will be meshed with solid elements
Shell Elements VS. Solid Elements Besides the geometry, the shell elements have rotational degrees of freedom, while solid elements do not
For a truss element in three-dimensional space, what is the number of degrees of freedom for the element? Each node has 3 degrees of freedom and each element has 6 degrees
of freedom.
How are beam and truss different? Beam members are rigidly connected, the members at a joint transmit not only axial loads but also bending and shear, where truss is axial only