Deformation Scale for buckling analysis

[alexander.griffiths]

Can anyone tell me how the deformation scale works for the buckling analysis?
I was hoping that I could normalise the deformed model to a set displacement and use this as an initial imperfection in a Non-linear analysis. However, It doesn’t seem to be working as expected. See image below.

[cp1 (Clemens Preisinger)]

Hello @alexander.griffiths,
the buckling shapes get scaled in such a way that their largest displacement component has the value ‘1’. This can be a translational or rotational degree of freedom.
In case you want to unitize the resultant displacement of a node you need to extract the displacement components via the ‘Nodal Displacements’-component, form the resultants of the nodal translations and use the maximum value of these for scaling the buckling shape.
– Clemens

[alexander.griffiths]

Hi Clemens,
Thanks for the clarification. I also found the following post on the discussion forum helpful for scaling the maximum displacement to an initial imperfection.

Initial deformed model for Non-Linear analysis

Dear experts, Is there an easy way to apply an initial controlled deformation to the Non-Linear analysis component? Note that I don´t refer to “Imperfection Load” (Karamba´s manual page 41), since this loads do not add directly to the beam displacements and they act indirectly and only in the presence of a normal force NII. So far, I´ve plugged the Deformed Model from a previous linear buckling analysis, but it is difficult to control the maximum amplitude of the initial deformation. For exam…

Regards,
Alex