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Components for Stress or Strain
When you select Stress, Strain, or Thermal Strain (FEM only) from the Quantity drop-down list, the Component drop-down list displays the components specific to these quantities. Use this drop-down list to further refine your quantity definition. The choices available on this menu depend on the design study, display type, and quantity combination you select.
Following are the possible items that appear in the Component drop-down list if you select Stress, Strain, or Thermal Strain (FEM only). If you have a beam model, Creo Simulate displays additional items.
• Max Principal—the maximum principal stress or strain. For mixed locations that include beams, Max Principal specifies total stress or strain for beams. For an example of a Max Principal stress vector display, see Example: Max Principal Stress Vector Plot.
• Min Principal—the minimum principal stress or strain
• Mid Principal—the principal stress or strain that has a numerical value between max principal and min principal.
• All Principals—all the principal stress components or strain components.
 
* You can select the All Principals component when the Display Type is Vectors. You can view the vector plot of all the principal components of a stress or strain results quantity.
• von Mises—a combination of all stress components. This component is not available for Strain or Thermal Strain quantities.
• Maximum Shear—one-half the maximum absolute difference between the principal stresses or strains. This component is not available for Strain or Thermal Strain quantities.
• XX—normal stress or strain along the X axis
• XY—shear stress or strain acting in the Y direction on the plane whose outward normal is parallel to the X axis
• XZ—shear stress or strain acting in the Z direction on the plane whose outward normal is parallel to the X axis. This component is only available for 3D models.
• YY—normal stress or strain along the Y axis
• YZ—shear stress or strain acting in the Z direction on the plane whose outward normal is parallel to the Y axis. This component is only available for 3D models.
• ZZ—normal stress or strain along the Z axis. This component is only available for 3D models.
• Equivalent Plastic Strain—scalar component of strain for nonlinear static analysis with plasticity. It is available only when an elastoplastic material is used in the model. Equivalent plastic strain is a hardening variable that defines the plastic state of the material. The fringe plot of equivalent plastic strain indicates the magnitude of plastic deformation. An equivalent plastic strain of 0 indicates that the material deforms elastically at that point.
 
* The shear strain quantities are those of engineering strain which is two times the tensorial strain.
* gxy = 2exy
* where gxy is shear strain
* and exy is tensorial strain
For directional components, Creo Simulate displays the Relative To drop-down list, enabling you to display the result relative to a coordinate system, laminate ply, and so forth. Be aware that if you change the coordinate system for your results display, the directional components in the Component drop-down list change to reflect the new coordinate system. For example, if you change from Cartesian to Cylindrical, the labels change from XX, YY, and ZZ to RR, TT, and ZZ. For more information, see Results Relative to Coordinate Systems.
Native mode expresses stress values and directions somewhat differently than they are sometimes described in textbooks. To learn more about how native mode stresses relate to textbook examples, see How Stress Components Relate to Textbook Examples.