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Why do I obtain different stress results when using "values" and "diagrams" at a node?

There are two principal reasons for this:

a) The "values" layer displays nodal values on the screen. for stress/strain results these values will be the averaged values from each of the adjacent elements. Labelling diagrams actually gives the element values - hence more than one label is obtained at a node that is connected to other elements.

b) The element axes for Engineering beams (particularly) will make a difference to the sign of the stress/strain obtain when using "value" layer to display results. It is possible to have a zero stress output at a node, therefore if the nodal values are equal, but opposite in sign. If the local beam element x-axes are opposite to each other, this may be changed by reversing the line direction (Geometry>Line>Reverse...)


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