Hi, I am calculating the periods of a steel building modeled as a 3D moment frame. Is there any script to display the shape of vibrating of the model in opensees?
Yes, there are scripts available in OpenSees to display the shape of the vibrating model. One way to do this is by using the `recorder` command in OpenSees to record the nodal displacements and then use a post-processing tool to visualize the mode shapes.
Here's an example of how you can do this:
1. First, create your 3D moment frame model in OpenSees and perform the modal analysis to obtain the mode shapes and periods.
2. After the modal analysis, you can use the `recorder` command to record the nodal displacements for the desired mode shape. For example, to record the displacements for the first mode shape, you can use the following code:
```tcl
# Create a recorder to store the nodal displacements
This will create a file named `mode1.out` that contains the nodal displacements for the first mode shape.
3. Once you have the recorded data, you can use a post-processing tool to visualize the mode shape. One popular tool for this purpose is Paraview, which can read the OpenSees output files and create a visualization of the mode shape.
Here's an example of how you can use Paraview to visualize the mode shape:
a. Open Paraview and import the `mode1.out` file.
b. In the Paraview pipeline, select the "Temporal Animation" filter to create a time-varying visualization of the mode shape.
c. Adjust the visualization settings, such as the scaling factor, to get the desired view of the mode shape.
d. You can also use Paraview's animation features to create a video of the mode shape.
Alternatively, you can use other post-processing tools, such as MATLAB or Python, to read the OpenSees output files and create custom visualizations of the mode shapes.
The key steps are to (1) record the nodal displacements using the `recorder` command in OpenSees, and (2) use a post-processing tool to visualize the mode shape. This will allow you to see the shape of the vibrating model and better understand the dynamic behavior of your steel building.