Positive orientation of forces and displacements agrees with the positive orientation of coordinate system axes. Positive orientation of angles, rotations, or moments in the local or global coordinate system are determined on the basis of the right hand rule. This convention defines signs of external forces, nodal forces, displacements and rotations. These values are used in structure definition, during structure calculations, and results display.
A different convention can be assumed to describe the signs of internal forces operating within each element. For more information regarding sign conventions in operating internal forces, see bar, planar finite elements and volumetric finite elements.