Remote Displacement

Hi @gkondracki,
first lets try with the easiest part - visualization of point coordinates. If you see a remote point in a simulation you can visualize its location by creating a geometry primitive of type point:

I guess you read the part about the remote displacement constraint in our documentation. Let me describe the concept of it a little more descriptive with an example.

The basic idea is that for the remote displacement constraint the translational and rotational behavior for a specific point in space is defined (for example “free to rotate around z-axis”). Then this point is connected via “multi-point constraints” to a face or edge of the model (either allowing a deformation of the connected areas or not).

As an example, imagine you want to model a pinned constraint, as seen below without actually needing to model the pin and the contact:

What you should do is:

  • choose as remote point the center of the pin
  • fix all degrees of freedom but the rotation around the axis of the pin
  • assign it to the cylindrical pin surfaces

In a sketch this looks like this (dashed lines represent MPCs), remote point in the COG of the pin:

Be aware that this constraint only works correctly under the assumption of small deformations and rotations (<~5°) .

Resulting displacement compared to a modelization using a modeled pin and sliding contact:


Left: Result using remote constraint Right: Pin modled and sliding contact between pin and bar

You can check out the actual project related to the example above from here: Pinned Bar Example - Remote Displacement vs Sliding Contact by rszoeke | SimScale

I hope this helps understanding the remote constraint a little.
Best,
Richard

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