The Mechanical APDL program uses several types of coordinate systems, each used for a different purpose:
Global and local coordinate systems are used to locate geometry items (nodes, keypoints, etc.) in space.
The display coordinate system determines the system in which geometry items are listed or displayed.
The nodal coordinate system defines the degree of freedom directions at each node and the orientation of nodal results data.
The element coordinate system determines the orientation of material properties and element results data.
The results coordinate system is used to transform nodal or element results data to a particular coordinate system for listings, displays, or general postprocessing operations (POST1).
The working plane, which is separate from the coordinate systems discussed here, is for locating geometric primitives during the modeling process. See Using Working Planes for more information about the working plane.
The following coordinate system topics are available: