How can I improve Simscape flexible beam results like FEM results

Hello,

I want to improve the results of "Simscape Mechanics Explorer". In particular:

1. I want to magnify small displacements of beams (like x1000 for example) just for better comprehension of the beam deflection (otherwise displacements are too small).NB: I cant increase loads by x1000. I just want to magnify displacement in the post processing for see better the beam displacements. I want to obtain the same behaviour of the option 'DeformationScaleFactor' of the MATLAB command 'pdeplot3D'.
2. I want to color the "Flexible Beam" of simscape in the "Mechanics Explorer" with a colormap according to the displacement of the beam, like FEM does.

Fig 1: What I actually obtain using Simscape: no color, displacement with scale x1 (basically invisible)

Fig 2: What I want to obtain (just an exaple): with color, displacement magnifyed by scale x1000 (easily understood the results)

How can I obtain that?

NB: I don't want to use PDE toolbox for mesh the beam, even if this solution give me the results that I am looking for: I want to get this behaviour in Simscape.

Thanks and best regards.

Answer 1

[Alberto Mora]

I developed a Simscape library for estimate Von-Mises stress of beams.

Have fun!

[Simson Hutagalung]

How to generate deformation colormap 2D in matlab with data from excel?

[Alberto Mora]

The library that I developed allows only stress estimation, not displacement with coloramap. Sorry. Anyway you can extract displacement of beam ends from simulink and then save into excel (note: as far as I know, you can’t save displacement of node in the middle of the beam).