Probes enable you to find results at a point on the model, or minimum or maximum results on a body, face, edge, or vertex; to find results on objects in the tree, such as elastic support or weak springs; or to obtain reaction forces and moments at supports.
Important:
- Line Body Scoping Limitation
The application does not currently support the setting for the Location Method property when scoping probes to line bodies.
- Shell Geometry Considerations
Probe results at the mid-surface location of a shell geometry are obtained by interpolating the Top and Bottom layer result values. (This differs from Contour results which directly extracts the mid-surface location from the solver.)
When probes are scoped to a Coordinate System, the application first identifies the element corresponding to the scoped location, using a hit-detection algorithm. Once the element is identified, the application gathers the averaged nodal results for that element and then uses shape functions to find the interpolated result value at the scoped location. This interpolated value will account for both the Top and Bottom layer values for shell geometries.
- Probe Scoping Limitation for Models with Changing Mesh
If you are using a feature that automatically changes the mesh during the solution process, such as the Nonlinear Adaptive Region object or SMART Crack Growth, any result probe scoped to the corresponding body will not evaluate.
- Probe Scoping Limitation for Symmetry
Certain probes, such as a Reaction probe, support mesh scoping (node, element, or element face) through the Boundary Condition it is scoped to. However, if you specify Symmetry in your analysis, the application does not support mesh scoping on any probe.
- Interpolation Limitation
Values for positions inside of an element may differ from hand-calculated values, especially for certain user defined result expressions. See the limitations topic in the Interpolation of Result Values section.
This section examines the general function of the probe tool in Mechanical as well as the specific probe types that are available in the Mechanical application. It also describes the Details options associated with the probe object.