The term initial state refers to the state of a structure at the start of an analysis. Typically, the assumption is that the initial state of a structure is undeformed and unstressed; however, such ideal conditions are not always realistic.
The initial-state capability enables you to define a nontrivial state from which to start an analysis. For example, you can specify an initial stress or strain state for a structure.
Initial state is supported for the following analysis types
(ANTYPE,Antype): Static
(Antype = STATIC), Transient
(Antype = TRANS), Modal (Antype =
MODAL), Harmonic (Antype = HARMIC), Buckling
(Antype = BUCKLE), and Soil
(Antype = SOIL).
Initial-state application data includes:
Initial-state support is also available for distributed-memory parallel processing analyses.
The following initial-state topics are available:
- 4.1. Specifying and Editing Initial-State Values
- 4.2. Standard Initial-State Application
- 4.3. Mesh-Independent Initial-State Application
- 4.4. Using an Initial-State (.ist) Data File
- 4.5. Using Coordinate Systems with Initial State
- 4.6. Initial-State Limitations
- 4.7. Example Problems Using Initial State
- 4.8. Writing Initial-State Values
Also see Applying an Initial State to Reinforcing Elements in the Structural Analysis Guide.