What are Section recorder Outputs?

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alima2065
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2011 9:15 am
Location: nar

What are Section recorder Outputs?

Post by alima2065 » Tue May 01, 2012 6:06 am

What are Section recorder Outputs?
Hi dears
In accordance to OPENSEES Manual, we have the section recorders for recording section deformations and forces. But I have not found any about these output parameters. For example, section deformation outputs are two. I think the first is average axial deformation and the second is average rotation of section. And similarly for forces, the first is average axial force and the second is average moment of section.
If above statement is correct, what do you think about make use of these outputs for evaluating plastic hinge deformation instead of chord rotation?

vesna
Posts: 3033
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 11:23 am
Location: UC Berkeley

Re: What are Section recorder Outputs?

Post by vesna » Tue May 01, 2012 10:48 am

The output of the section depends on the type of the section you assign to your elements. For example, if you use fiber section and you record deformation you will get axial deformation and curvature of the section as the output quantities. If you then aggregate shear force-deforamtion relationship to the fiber section, you will record sear deformation as well. To see which output is in what column, record the output in -xml format.

alima2065
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2011 9:15 am
Location: nar

Re: What are Section recorder Outputs?

Post by alima2065 » Tue May 01, 2012 7:59 pm

Thank you vesna
I have used fiber section for my nonlinear beam columns. I want to obtain average section rotation and average axial forces in the ends of elements I have used these reorders (element has 5 integration points):
recorder Element -xml start.xml -ele 1 section 1 deformation
recorder Element -xml End.xml -ele 1 section 5 deformation
The outputs are “eps” and “kappaZ” but I don’t know which strain is eps? Or what is kappaZ ?
Also I can’t see xml format in correct way. I would appreciate if you could help me.

vesna
Posts: 3033
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 11:23 am
Location: UC Berkeley

Re: What are Section recorder Outputs?

Post by vesna » Thu May 03, 2012 2:29 pm

"eps" is axial deformation and "kappaZ" is a curvature about local z axis.

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