BSORIENT (Orient a Two-Sided Surface and Make it Single-Sided)

Description

The BSORIENT entry defines the surface orientation for a two-sided contact surface. This entry makes the two-sided surface single-sided. Only two-sided surfaces can use this option. If the contact surface identifier value, CSID, on a BSORIENT entry references a surface derived from solid elements, an error occurs. Solid elements generate single sided faces.

Format

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
BSORIENT	CSID	REV	USEXYZ

Example 1

Make a contact surface single-sided.

BSORIENT

21

Example 2

Reverse the orientation of a contact surface and make it single-sided.

BSORIENT

21

TRUE

Example 3

Orient a contact surface using the coordinates of a point in space. The surface will be oriented so that all positive normals point toward the point in space.

BSORIENT

2

FALSE

TRUE

7.3

-4.2

-0.5

Field	Definition	Type	Default
CSID	The value for CSID is the contact surface identification number. See Remark 1.	Integer > 0	Required
REV	The REV flag set to TRUE indicates the surface orientation should be reversed. See Remark 2.	Character, either TRUE or FALSE	FALSE
USEXYZ	The USEXYZ flag set to TRUE indicates that the surface should be oriented using the coordinates defined by X, Y, & Z. See Remarks 3 and 4.	Character, either TRUE or FALSE	FALSE
X	X coordinate value of optional orientation point.	Real or blank
Y	Y coordinate value of optional orientation point.	Real or blank
Z	Z coordinate value of optional orientation point.	Real or blank

Remarks

1. The contact surface identifier references the CSID on a BSSEG entry or the CSID for a contact surface generated with a CONTACTGENERATE command. See the description of the CONTACTGENERATE command.
2. If the USEXYZ flag is true, the surface is first oriented using the coordinates and then reversed if the REV flag is set to TRUE.
3. All surfaces have a natural orientation defined by the positive normals of the faces on the surface. The positive normal for a face follows the right-hand rule for node number on the face. When you view the face, a counter-clockwise number of the nodes produces a normal that points towards you.
4. The coordinates of the orientation point will attempt to orient all the faces on the surface so that the positive normals point towards the orientation point. Consider a cylinder meshed using all CQAUD4 elements. Depending upon on how the mesh was generated, the surface orientation could either point into the cylinder or out of the cylinder. Let us assume that it points out of the cylinder but we want to define contact only on the interior of the cylinder. Then Example 2 above shows how to accomplish this. We simply define a point on the axis of the cylinder and the BSORIENT option selects the inside of the cylinder as the surface (all the normals point towards the centerline of the cylinder).