Extraction body

Create a body from an existing structural member

This tool allows for deriving (“extracting”) a body from a structural member of the type girder, pier, link girder or deck.

These extraction bodies can then be used in the same way as prisms, which especially allows for performing Boolean operations with other bodies (extraction bodies or prisms).

The original structural member (which serves as a template) remains unaffected and can optionally be declared as an auxiliary body to deactivate it from being part of the geometric model (see analogously to here). This can be performed after marking the respective member in the 3D window via its context menu or directly in its property window. At any case, the original structural member remains in the background, which causes geometric changes on this initial body to respectively take effect on the derived extraction body (i.e. the parametric connection remains).

When creating an extraction body from a structural member, the range, from which the body should be derived, can be defined by a starting and end station. According to the definition of bodies, the extraction body only has a Geometric Position 1 and 2 and is created along the respective length (without intermediate stations). In addition, a slicing plane can be defined for the extraction body at the defined starting and end station of the original body which is determined by a rotation of the local coordinate axes of the cross section (Y/Z).

The extraction body is initially created at the position of its original body and can then arbitrarily be positioned and oriented using various editing tools.

Note: Unlike with prims, when creating the extraction body, the defined reference points in the cross section are not automatically created as docking points. However, docking points can arbitrarily be defined afterwards manually (also relative to reference points) using the respective tool in the context menu of the extraction body.

Note: For calculational reasons, the option Smooth (see here) must not be checked at the original structural member, since this could lead to unintended geometric discrepancies on the derived body.

To create an extraction body from a structural member

1. Click Extraction body.
2. Optionally, edit the name and the description and confirm the input with OK.

   A new extraction body is created in the menu Bodies in the project navigation tree.

3. Select the structural unit (beam element) of the structural member from which you want to derive the extraction body.
4. In the opening window, choose if you want to take over the whole range between the first and the last station of the selected structural unit of the structural member.
   • If yes, the input is finished.
5. Choose/edit the wished first position (begin or end station) for the range of the body to be derived on the axis of the structural member of the selected structural unit, and confirm it with a mouse click or the enter key.
6. Choose/edit the wished second position (begin or end station) for the range of the body to be derived on the axis of the structural member of the selected structural unit, and confirm it with a mouse click or the enter key.

After creating the extraction body, optionally define the wished slicing angles (default value = 0) at the defined begin and end station of the original body in the property window.

Slice: Rotation about Y-axis / Rotation about Z-axis

• Angle [value]

Definition of the slicing plane by the rotation angle of the local Y- or Z-axis of the cross section

• Angle [expression]

Assign a table or formula for defining the angle