Joint

Joint Element

The Joint is a joint element that uses displacement as inputs.

• Number of Nodes: 2

• Number of DoFs: varies

Syntax

element Joint (1) (2) (3) (4...)
# (1) int, unique element tag
# (2) int, node i
# (3) int, node j
# (4...) int, material tags

Remarks

The Joint element defines a joint connecting two nodes that can coincide with each other regarding their coordinates. The relative displacement is used as strain input. Thus, the corresponding material model shall be defined to use displacement and force. Note in the current implementation the global horizontal and vertical displacements are passed to the material models to compute the response.

The number of connected degrees of freedom can vary based on the number of tags of material models assigned to the element. The material models are used for each DoF sequentially according to the definition. If one wants to define a joint tagged 5 between node 1 and node 2 using material 3 for the first four DoFs, the following command can be used.

element Joint 5 1 2 3 3 3 3