Substructure Tool Macro

The Substructure Tool macro provides several features for creating and modifying substructures.

Substructures are user-defined sets of finite elements, elements and nodes, or nodes from the initial model. Information defining the substructures and their boundary node displacements are saved in a special file during the initial run. In subsequent runs, this saved data is read in and the saved displacement time histories are applied as imposed displacements to the boundary nodes. The input data set for a subrun must contain all the information needed to perform the subrun.
Note:
  • The SUBDF card is supported as a vector collector in HyperMesh.
  • You must have a pre-existing GES created that contains the nodes/elements of the part defining the substructure.

When you open the Substructure Tool macro, the existing substructures are listed in a table-based interface, as shown below.

The substructures are sorted by order of creation. The following columns appear in the table:
Table 1.
Column Description
Keyword Name The name of the substructure.
IDEF Indicates the definition type of the substructure:
0
Only via elements
1
Via elements and boundary nodes
2
Only via boundary nodes
DTSUB Specifies the time intervals for the boundary node displacement time histories.
Elements Displays the ID of the element-based entity set. You can click GES… to use the GES Browser to select an entity set.
Boundary Nodes Displays the ID of the boundary node-based entity set. You can click GES… to use the GES Browser to select an entity set.
Filename SUBURN Name of the file that contains the definition of the substructure and its boundary node displacements.
Time Factor Time unit scaling factor.
Length Factor Length unit scaling factor.