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What is Scale Factor and Why Is it So Large?
Posted 08.06.2021, 17:21 GMT-4 Results & Visualization, Studies & Solvers, Structural Mechanics Version 5.6 3 Replies
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Hi all,
I am running non-linear structural simulations and am having issues what the scale factor is when plotting the deformed shape? Is there a reason my scale factor is so large/small and does that impact the actual data taken from the simulation or just the data plotted? I would like to think that the scale factor should just be 1 if everything is being simulated correctly. However, I have gotten values as large as 9000.
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Comsol sets the scale factor so the displacements are visible. You are free to set different values if you want.
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How does comsol choose the scale factor value? I am running a parameter sweep and creating a 2D plot group of the stress and scale factor between successive steps changes immensly in order for the visualization to make physical sense. Is there any literature on the scale factor that COMSOL has?
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Hi Nicholas,
If I remember correctly (And please don't quote me on this!), the algorithm that picks the default scaling factor tries to make the magnitude of the largest displacement look like ~10% of the greatest distance between any two vertices in the geometry.
Best,
Jeff
-------------------Jeff Hiller