Engineering Notes

Topic

OpenSees

  1. 07

    Lesson learned · OpenSees

    My OpenSees database would not reproduce: the material remembered the previous model

    I reran 20 analyses with the same code and the same inputs, and none matched. The cause was a material that keeps memory between models when they run in the same Python process. The fix is one line.

    3 min read

  2. 04

    Lesson learned · OpenSees

    dispBeamColumn or forceBeamColumn: the element that moves your shear by 56%

    OpenSees lets you model a column with two element types that look equivalent. Against a real test, one got the shear within 1% and the other overshot by 56%. I explain why, starting from the basic idea.

    3 min read