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U* Index for Load Path Analysis

An XANSYS forum poster pointed out an interesting thesis on load path index U*. There was a brute force method of a solution for every single node shown in Figure 8. Alternately, there is a U* Toolkit found in Nastran which appears to really speed the calculations.

The brute force method was used here in this Ansys Classic input file : link

Figure 1: Load Path Index U*

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