Member and element loading

In GSA, you have the choice to apply loads directly to the member or element. As described in the member and element explanations entries, members in GSA represent physical entities in a structural model and are comprised of one or more finite elements that share the same attributes as the member. Elements represent individual finite elements that make up a finite element analysis model.

Loads applied to a member will load all elements in the member:

Loads applied to an element will only load the element onto which the load is applied:

Behind the scenes, loads applied onto members will be automatically expanded to load the appropriate finite elements in order to analyse the model and compute the results.

Note: A member's constituent elements must exist in order to visualize the member load and analyse the model with that load. If you don't see the loads in the graphics view, use the create elements from members tool () to create the constituent elements.

Note: When using Member loading, it is important to keep the members and their elements synchronised because loads are applied to elements of a specified member using the element properties. For example, consider a model where member 1 includes elements 1, 2 and 3, however, member 1 uses property 1 and elements 1, 2 and 3 use property 2. If we apply gravity load to members of property 1, elements 1, 2 and 3 will be loaded using the weight of property 2.

See the tables below for the load types available for members and elements:

1D entity loading

Load type	Member loading options	Element loading options
Beam loads	Point, uniform, linear, patch, trilinear	Point, uniform, linear, patch, trilinear
Pre-stress	Pre-stress force, initial strain, lack of fit, tendon pre-stress	Pre-stress force, initial strain, lack of fit, tendon pre-stress
Distortions	N/A	Distortions described by position and displacement
Thermal	Uniform, gradient in y, gradient in z	Uniform, gradient in y, gradient in z

2D entity loading

Load type	Member loading options	Element loading options
Face loads	Uniform, equation	Uniform, general, point, equation
Edge loads	N/A	Can specify which edge to apply loads to
Pre-stress	Pre-stress force, initial strain, tendon pre-stress	Pre-stress force, initial strain, tendon pre-stress
Thermal	Uniform, gradient	Uniform, gradient, general

3D entity loading

Load type	Member loading options	Element loading options
Face loads	Uniform loading only	Uniform, variable
Thermal	Uniform loading only	Uniform, variable