Rigid Spider

Rigid Spider connects a node to a set of nodes in a rigid fashion.

Type

spider element

Physical property

rigid body motion

Mesh connectivity

SPIDER

Number of nodes

1 master, n-1 slaves

Degrees of freedom
(per node)

6 (3 translations and 3 rotations)

Type of behavior

kinematics

The degrees of freedom of the master node (N1) are linked to the degrees of freedom of each slave node (N2 to Nn) according to rigid-body equations. 
As a consequence, the displacements of the slave nodes are linked among themselves according to rigid-body motion.
Any direction can be relaxed in the rigid-body equations.

If there is only one slave node, this Rigid Spider element becomes the traditional Rigid Beam element.