PSI - Issue 78

Stefano Ercolessi et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 78 (2026) 1497–1504

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Fig. 3. Input excitation.

Fig. 4. ParaView post-processing: σ y vertical stresses.

On the other hand, nodal quantities, such as displacements and accelerations, do not need a filter for appropriate visualization. Figure 4 illustrates the vertical stresses resulting from the gravity analysis. Dynamic analysis results can be displayed in terms of acceleration. In Figure 5 is depicted a snapshot of the transient analysis performed on the model. Specifically, the acceleration values in correspondence of the time instant 23.79 s, soon after that the excitation manifest its maximum absolute value. What is worth to mention is that the open-source framework it can sustain a FEA framework in all its aspects and steps. Indeed, is able to deal with all the required phases as presented in the numerical application. Moreover, the possibility to read and visualize stresses and strains, which has been integrated in the OpenSees PVD recorders is a crucial factor especially for analysis, where those quantities are needed.

4. Conclusions

The present work introduces an open-source, cross-platform FEA workflow that can be seamlessly integrated with the OpenSees framework. Despite the widespread adoption of OpenSees, largely due to its computational capabilities, flexibility, and extensibility, it lacks a built-in pre- and post-processing environment. To address these limitations, this workflow incorporates two widely used open-source tools for the pre-processing and post-processing stages. Gmsh is employed as the pre-processor due to its robust geometry and mesh generation capabilities. Through its C ++ API,