Hi all. For extracting values of bending moment, when I'm checking in the bending moment diagram, the support moments (hogging) are + and span moments (sagging) are -. But when I'm checking in report, the same value reverses sign. i have to additionally copy the same columns again and reverse the sign. I was hoping to automate in excel to extract max support moments (excel : max(values)) and max span moments (min(values)). Please suggest a way out to minimize effort.
In checking bending moment values through "beam end forces", it shows bending values of ith and jth nodes for each beam and the sign is reversing at jth end. When checking through "beam section forces", the as above ith and jth node values are coming with correct signs but every beam itself is being divided into so many section. I have divided my element (top slab of a two cell box culvert) into 10 division. Now each division as per "beam section forces" is again being divided into 12 sections which is creating a large array of data!!
Let me explain the sign convention for beam end forces to you.Let for a beam start node is Node no 1 and end node is node no 2. Now assume the first node has negative force and the second node has positive force. If you plot the axial force Fx at the two nodes following the convention that positive Fx is along the positive direction of local x axis (from node 1 to node 2) and vice versa, you will see that the axial force in the member is tensile. So, you need to check the beam local axis and accordingly align the member forces to know the nature of force.