Chapter 6: Element Birth and Death

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8

6.1 What Is Element Birth and Death?

If material is added to (or removed from) a system, certain elements in your model may
become "existent" (or "nonexistent"). The element birth and death options can be used to
deactivate or reactivate selected elements in such cases. (Applicable element types are listed
in Table 6-1.) This feature can be useful in analyzing excavation (as in mining and tunneling),
staged construction (as in shored bridge erection), sequential assembly (as in fabrication of
layered computer chips), and many other applications in which you can easily identify
activated or deactivated elements by their known locations. The birth and death feature is
only available in the ANSYS/Multiphysics, ANSYS/Mechanical, and ANSYS/Structural
products.
Table 6-1 Elements with birth and death capability
LINK1
PLANE2
BEAM3
BEAM4
SOLID5
LINK8
LINK10
LINK11
PLANE13
COMBIN14
PIPE16
PIPE17
PIPE18

SURF19
PIPE20
MASS21
SURF22
BEAM23
BEAM24
PLANE25
MATRIX27
LINK31
LINK32
LINK33
LINK34
PLANE35

SHELL41
PLANE42
SHELL43
BEAM44
SOLID45
PLANE53
BEAM54
PLANE55
SHELL57
PIPE59
PIPE60
SOLID62
SHELL63

SOLID64
SOLID65
PLANE67
LINK68
SOLID69
SOLID70
MASS71
SOLID72
SOLID73
PLANE75
PLANE77
PLANE78
PLANE82

PLANE83
SOLID87
SOLID90
SOLID92
SHELL93
SOLID95
SOLID96
SOLID97
SOLID98
SHELL99
PLANE121
SOLID122
SOLID123

SHELL143
SURF151
SURF152
SURF153
SURF154
SHELL157
TARGE169
TARGE170
CONTA171
CONTA172
CONTA173
CONTA174

User elements may also be given the birth and death capability. See the Guide to ANSYS User
Programmable Features for more information on user elements
In some circumstances, an element's birth and death status may be dependent on an ANSYScalculated quantity, such as temperature, stress, strain, etc. You can use commands such as
ETABLE (Main Menu>General Postproc>Element Table>Define Table) and ESEL

(Utility Menu>Select>Entities) to determine the value of such quantities in selected

elements, and to change the status (melted, solidified, ruptured, etc.) of those elements
accordingly. This procedure can be useful for modeling effects due to phase changes (as in
welding processes, when structurally inactive molten material solidifies and becomes
structurally active), failure-surface propagation, and other analysis-dependent element
changes.

6.1.1 How Does the Birth and Death Feature Work?

To achieve the "element death" effect, the ANSYS program does not actually remove "killed"
elements. Instead, it deactivates them by multiplying their stiffness (or conductivity, or other
analogous quantity) by a severe reduction factor [ESTIF]. This factor is set to 1.0E-6 by
default, but can be given other values (see Section 6.2.2 for more information). Element loads
associated with deactivated elements are zeroed out of the load vector, however, they still
appear in element-load lists. Similarly, mass, damping, specific heat, and other such effects
are set to zero for deactivated elements. The mass and energy of deactivated elements are not
included in the summations over the model. An element's strain is also set to zero as soon as
that element is killed.
In like manner, when elements are "born," they are not actually added to the model; they are
simply reactivated. You must create all elements, including those to be born in later stages of
your analysis, while in PREP7. You cannot create new elements in SOLUTION. To "add" an
element, you first deactivate it, then reactivate it at the proper load step.
When an element is reactivated, its stiffness, mass, element loads, etc. return to their full
original values. Elements are reactivated having no record of strain history (or heat storage,
etc.). However, initial strain defined as a real constant (for elements such as LINK1) will not
be affected by birth and death operations. Also, unless large-deformation effects are turned on
[NLGEOM,ON], some element types will be reactivated in their originally specified
geometric configuration (large-deformation effects should be included to obtain meaningful
results). Thermal strains are computed for newly-activated elements based on the current load
step temperature and the reference temperature. Thus, newborn elements with thermal loads
may not be stress-free as intended. The material property REFT can be used instead of the
global TREF to specify material-dependent reference temperatures. This allows you to
specify the activation temperature as a stress-free temperature.

6.2 How to Use the Birth and Death Feature

You can include element birth and death behavior in most static and nonlinear transient
analyses, using the same basic procedures described in the various analysis guides. As in any
other analysis, the procedure consists of three main steps:

Build the model

Apply loads and obtain the solution

Review the results

Modify your basic analysis procedure as follows to incorporate the element birth and death
feature:

6.2.1 Build the Model

While in PREP7, create all elements-even those that won't be activated until later load steps.
You cannot create new elements outside of PREP7.

6.2.2 Apply Loads and Obtain the Solution

Perform the following actions within SOLUTION:

6.2.2.1 Define the First Load Step

In the first load step, you must choose the analysis type and all appropriate analysis options:
Command(s):
ANTYPE
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Analysis Type-New Analysis
For a structural analysis, large-deflection effects should be on:
Command(s):
NLGEOM,ON
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>Analysis Options
For all birth and death applications, you must be sure to set the Newton-Raphson option
explicitly in the first load step, as the program cannot predict the presence of an EKILL
command in a subsequent load step:
Command(s):
NROPT
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>Analysis Options
Deactivate [EKILL] all the initially inactive elements that are to be added (reactivated) in
later load steps:
Command(s):
EKILL

GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Kill Elements
Elements are deactivated (or activated) in the first substep of the load step, and maintain that
status through the rest of the load step. Note that the default reduction factor used as a
stiffness multiplier might not suffice for some problems. Sometimes, you might have to
consider using a more severe reduction factor. To provide a new value for the reduction
factor:
Command(s):
ESTIF
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>Other>StiffnessMult
Nodes that are not connected to any active elements may "float," or pick up stray degree of
freedom (DOF) responses. In some cases, you might want to constrain inactive DOFs [D, CP,
etc.] to reduce the number of equations to be solved, and to avoid ill-conditioning. However,
constraining inactive DOFs can become more important for cases in which you want to
reactivate elements with a specific shape (or temperature, etc.). Of course, you must be sure
to remove such artificial constraints when you reactivate elements. You must also remove
nodal loads from inactive DOFs (i.e., at nodes that are not connected to any active elements).
Similarly, you must specifically add nodal loads (if any) to reactivated DOFs.
Part of your input listing could look like this for your first load step:
! First load step
TIME,...
NLGEOM,ON
NROPT,FULL
ESTIF,...
ESEL,...
EKILL,...
ESEL,S,LIVE
NSLE,S
NSEL,INVE
D,ALL,ALL,0
NSEL,ALL
ESEL,ALL
D,...
F,...
SF,...
BF,...
SAVE
SOLVE

!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!

Sets TIME value (optional for static analyses)

Turns large-deflection effects on
You must explicitly set the Newton-Raphson option
Sets non-default reduction factor (optional)
Selects elements to be deactivated in this load step
Deactivates selected elements
Selects all active elements
Selects all active nodes
Selects all inactive nodes (those not attached to any
active elements)
Constrains all inactive DOFs (optional)
Selects ALL nodes
Selects ALL elements
Adds constraints as appropriate
Adds nodal loads to active DOFs as appropriate
Adds element loads as appropriate
Adds body loads as appropriate

Please see the TIME, NLGEOM, NROPT, ESTIF, ESEL, EKILL, NSLE, NSEL, D, F,
SF, and BF command descriptions for more information.

6.2.2.2 Subsequent Load Steps

In your remaining load steps, you can deactivate and reactivate elements as desired. As
before, be sure to apply and delete constraints and nodal loads as appropriate.
To deactivate elements, use one of these methods:
Command(s):
EKILL
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Kill Elements
To reactivate elements, use one of these methods:
Command(s):
EALIVE
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Activate Elem
! Second (or subsequent) load step:
TIME,...
ESEL,...
EKILL,...
! Deactivates selected elements
ESEL,...
EALIVE,...
! Reactivates selected elements
...
FDELE,...
! Deletes nodal loads at inactive DOFs
D,...
! Constrains inactive DOFs
...
F,...
! Adds nodal loads as appropriate to active DOFs
DDELE,...
! Deletes constraints from reactivated DOFs
SAVE
SOLVE

Please see the TIME, ESEL, EKILL, EALIVE, FDELE, D, F, and DDELE command
descriptions for more information.

6.2.3 Review the Results

For the most part, you will follow standard procedures when postprocessing an analysis that
contains deactivated or reactivated elements. However, you should realize that "killed"
elements are still present in your model, even though they make an insignificant contribution
to the stiffness (conductivity, etc.) matrix. Therefore, they will be included in element
displays, output listings, etc. For example, deactivated elements will be included in nodal
results averaging (PLNSOL command or menu path Main Menu>General Postproc>Plot
Results>Nodal Solu) and will "smear" the results. The entire element printout for
deactivated elements should be ignored, since many items computed make little physical
sense. A suggestion is to use selecting (ESEL command or menu path Utility
Menu>Select>Entities) to remove deactivated elements for element displays and for other
postprocessing operations.

6.2.4 Using ANSYS Results to Control Birth and Death

At times, you will not explicitly know the location of elements that you need to deactivate or
reactivate. For instance, if you want to "kill" melted elements in a thermal analysis (i.e., to
model the removal of melted material), you will not know the location of those elements
beforehand; you will have to identify them on the basis of their ANSYS-calculated
temperatures. When the decision to deactivate or reactivate an element depends on the value
of an ANSYS result item (such as temperature, stress, strain, etc.), you can use commands to
identify and select the critical elements.
To identify the critical elements:
Command(s):
ETABLE
GUI:
Main Menu>General Postproc>Element Table>Define Table
To select the critical elements:
Command(s):
ESEL
GUI:
Utility Menu>Select>Entities
You could then deactivate or reactivate the selected elements. (You could also use the
ANSYS Parametric Design Language to write a macro to perform such an operation. See the
APDL Programmer's Guide for more information.)
To deactivate the selected elements:
Command(s):
EKILL, ALL
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Kill Elements
To reactivate the selected elements, use one of these methods:
Command(s):
EALIVE,ALL
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Activate Elem

The following simplified input listing demonstrates how you might deactivate elements that
rupture when their total strain has exceeded some critical value:
/SOLU
...
SOLVE
FINISH
!
/POST1
SET,...
ETABLE,STRAIN,EPTO,EQV
ESEL,S,ETAB,STRAIN,0.20
FINISH
!
/SOLU
ANTYPE,,REST
EKILL,ALL
ESEL,ALL
...

! Enter SOLUTION
! Typical solution procedure

! Enter POST1
! Store total equivalent strain in ETABLE
! Select all elements with total equivalent strain
! greater than or equal to 0.20
! Re-enter SOLUTION
! Deactivate selected (overstrained) elements
! Restore full element set
! Continue with solution

Please see the ETABLE, ESEL, ANTYPE, and EKILL command descriptions for more
information.

6.3 Further Guidelines

Constraint equations [CE, CEINTF, etc.] cannot be applied to inactive DOFs.

(Inactive DOFs occur when a node has no active ("alive") elements attached to it.)

You can model stress-relieving operations (such as annealing) by deactivating and

then reactivating elements.

In nonlinear analyses, be careful not to deactivate or reactivate elements in such a way

as to create singularities (such as sharp re-entrant corners in a structural analysis) or
sudden large changes in stiffness. Such situations are likely to cause convergence
difficulties.

If the model is entirely linear (has no contact or other nonlinear element present, and
the material is linear) except for birth and death elements, ANSYS will treat the
analysis as linear, and will not set SOLCONTROL,ON.

The FULL Newton-Raphson option with adaptive descent turned on often yields good
results in analyses that incorporate element birth and death. To use this option with
adaptive descent turned on:

Command(s):
NROPT,FULL,,ON
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>Analysis Options

You can retrieve a parameter whose value will indicate the status (active or inactive)
of an element [*GET,Par,ELEM, n, ATTR, LIVE] (Utility Menu> Parameters>Get
Scalar Data). This parameter could be used in APDL logical branching ([*IF], etc.)
or in other applications in which you need to monitor the birth-death status of an
element.

You might be tempted to try to deactivate or reactivate elements by changing their

material properties [MPCHG] (Main Menu>Preprocessor> Material
Props>Change Mat Num).
However, you must proceed cautiously if you attempt such a procedure. The
safeguards and restrictions that affect "killed" elements will not apply to elements that
have their material properties changed in SOLUTION. (Element forces will not be
automatically zeroed out; nor will strains, mass, specific heat, etc.) Many problems
could result from careless use of MPCHG. For instance, if you reduce an element's
stiffness to almost zero, but retain its mass, it could result in a singularity if subjected
to acceleration or inertial effects.
One application of MPCHG would be in modeling construction sequences in which
the strain history of a "born" element is maintained. Using MPCHG in such cases
will enable you to capture the initial strain experienced by elements as they are fitted
into the displaced nodal configuration.

The load step file method [LSWRITE] for solving multiple load steps cannot be used
with the birth-death option, because it will not write the status of deactivated or
reactivated elements to the load step file. Birth and death analyses having multiple
load steps must therefore be performed using a series of explicit SOLVE commands
(Main Menu>Solution>Current LS).