CESAR-LCPC: Structures applications
The partnership between two reknown French national institutes, SETRA (Roads and Highways Technical Institute) and LCPC (Public Works Research Laboratory) resulted, in 2003, in the release of CESAR-LCPC version 4 which includes new functionalities designed specifically to accommodate the modelling of civil engineering structures.
CESAR-LCPC allows static and dynamic analysis of all kinds of structures.
- Static analysis: Material linear and non-linear behaviour
- Stability analysis: Euler buckling modes
- Dynamic analysis: Modal or direct frequency response including damping. Eigen mode analysis.
CESAR-LCPC provides a large choice of elements to allow the modelling of all types of structures (cf. "Features" section) :
- Thin and thick shells,
- Solid elements with linear or quadratic interpolation (hexahedron, pentahedron or tetrahedron),
- 2D and 3D trusses and beams,
- Special elements (linear relations, links...).
Example of a tower block model
for static and dynamic analysis
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| Multi-fibers beam and shell elements |
Linear or non-linear behaviour of beams with multi-material section (reinforced concrete) may be considered using special elements, named "multi-fibres". In this type of modelisation, beam section is decomposed in several fibres sets. Each may have its own specific behaviour.
Authorized behaviour models are:
- Isotropic linear elasticity;
- Von Mises criterion with or without softening;
- Parabolic criterion;
- William-Warnke criterion.
A special tool allows automatic decomposition in fibres sets from following data:
- Sections geometry;
- Positions and areas of specific fibres (framings).
After analysis, user may visualize and access results in each defined section (normal stresses, plastic strains). Same model may be realized with shells. In this case, thickness is decomposed in several layers, each having a specific behaviour.
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Common drawing tools offer user to easily define and edit geometry of the structure:
- Lines, circles, ellipses, splines, preset structures;
- Surfaces of plane, cylindrical, "Coons" and other kinds;
- Translation, rotation and symmetries operations;
- Lines and surfaces intersections.
Supporting geometry and associated mesh |
| Optimized meshing procedures |
The software includes a wide set of efficient meshing procedures. All the algorithms allow definition of mesh refinement by giving density of all the segments:
- Mesh of surface regions of plan, revolution or coons type;
- Volume elements mesh from "super elements" of hexahedron, pentahedron or tetrahedron type;
- Automatic volume mesh generation using Tetmesh integrated meshing software developed by INRIA (Volumes are defined by their external surface and are filled of tetrahedrons);
- Surface meshes generated by lines extrusion;
- Volume meshes obtained by surfaces extrusion;
- Meshes extension by translation, rotations or symmetry.
| Interactive assignment of calculation conditions |
Complete set of calculation conditions are defined in an easy and interactive way. All the assigned properties (boundary conditions, loads, materials.) are viewed on the mesh thus user may conduct an efficient control.
| Wide set of vizualisations |
| User is guided through a simple interface automatically updated with content of CESAR results files. User may visualize all kind of results (deformed mesh, scalar isovalues, vectors, tensors, parameters evolution along a user-defined line).
isovalues of normal
effort Nyy
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| Results analysis in plane cuts |
User may view chosen results in a cut plane. The definition of the cut is interactive as position is defined with the mouse. For a fixed cut, the software can calculate resulting efforts (N, V, M) by integration of associated stresses.
| Numerical values associated to screened results may be obtained by simple interrogation of a node or an element with the mouse.
Interrogation of results at a node,
using mouse |
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CESAR-LCPC
Soils & Rocks
