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Chapter 6: Element Birth and Death

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6.1 What Is Element Birth and Death?

If material is added to (or removed from) a system, certain elements in your model may become "existent" (or
"nonexistent"). The element birth and death options can be used to deactivate or reactivate selected elements in
such cases. (Applicable element types are listed in Table 6-1.) This feature can be useful in analyzing excavation
(as in mining and tunneling), staged construction (as in shored bridge erection), sequential assembly (as in
fabrication of layered computer chips), and many other applications in which you can easily identify activated or
deactivated elements by their known locations. The birth and death feature is only available in the
ANSYS/Multiphysics, ANSYS/Mechanical, and ANSYS/Structural products.
Table 6-1 Elements with birth and death capability
LINK1

SURF19

SHELL41 SOLID64 PLANE83 SHELL143

PLANE2

PIPE20

PLANE42 SOLID65 SOLID87

SURF151

BEAM3

MASS21

SHELL43 PLANE67 SOLID90

SURF152

BEAM4

SURF22

BEAM44 LINK68

SOLID92

SURF153

SOLID5

BEAM23

SOLID45 SOLID69 SHELL93

SURF154

LINK8

BEAM24

PLANE53 SOLID70 SOLID95

SHELL157

LINK10

PLANE25

BEAM54 MASS71 SOLID96

TARGE169

LINK11

MATRIX27 PLANE55 SOLID72 SOLID97

TARGE170

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LINK31

SHELL57 SOLID73 SOLID98

CONTA171

COMBIN14 LINK32

PIPE59

PLANE75 SHELL99

CONTA172

PIPE16

LINK33

PIPE60

PLANE77 PLANE121 CONTA173

PIPE17

LINK34

SOLID62 PLANE78 SOLID122 CONTA174

PIPE18

PLANE35

SHELL63 PLANE82 SOLID123

User elements may also be given the birth and death capability. See the Guide to ANSYS User Programmable
Features for more information on user elements
In some circumstances, an element's birth and death status may be dependent on an ANSYS-calculated
quantity, such as temperature, stress, strain, etc. You can use commands such as ETABLE (Main
Menu>General Postproc>Element Table>Define Table) and ESEL (Utility Menu>Select>Entities) to
determine the value of such quantities in selected elements, and to change the status (melted, solidified, ruptured,
etc.) of those elements accordingly. This procedure can be useful for modeling effects due to phase changes (as
in welding processes, when structurally inactive molten material solidifies and becomes structurally active),
failure-surface propagation, and other analysis-dependent element changes.

6.1.1 How Does the Birth and Death Feature Work?

To achieve the "element death" effect, the ANSYS program does not actually remove "killed" elements. Instead,
it deactivates them by multiplying their stiffness (or conductivity, or other analogous quantity) by a severe
reduction factor [ESTIF]. This factor is set to 1.0E-6 by default, but can be given other values (see Section
6.2.2 for more information). Element loads associated with deactivated elements are zeroed out of the load
vector, however, they still appear in element-load lists. Similarly, mass, damping, specific heat, and other such
effects are set to zero for deactivated elements. The mass and energy of deactivated elements are not included in
the summations over the model. An element's strain is also set to zero as soon as that element is killed.
In like manner, when elements are "born," they are not actually added to the model; they are simply reactivated.
You must create all elements, including those to be born in later stages of your analysis, while in PREP7. You
cannot create new elements in SOLUTION. To "add" an element, you first deactivate it, then reactivate it at the
proper load step.
When an element is reactivated, its stiffness, mass, element loads, etc. return to their full original values. Elements
are reactivated having no record of strain history (or heat storage, etc.). However, initial strain defined as a real
constant (for elements such as LINK1) will not be affected by birth and death operations. Also, unless largedeformation effects are turned on [NLGEOM,ON], some element types will be reactivated in their originally
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specified geometric configuration (large-deformation effects should be included to obtain meaningful results).
Thermal strains are computed for newly-activated elements based on the current load step temperature and the
reference temperature. Thus, newborn elements with thermal loads may not be stress-free as intended. The
material property REFT can be used instead of the global TREF to specify material-dependent reference
temperatures. This allows you to specify the activation temperature as a stress-free temperature.

6.2 How to Use the Birth and Death Feature

You can include element birth and death behavior in most static and nonlinear transient analyses, using the same
basic procedures described in the various analysis guides. As in any other analysis, the procedure consists of
three main steps:
Build the model
Apply loads and obtain the solution
Review the results
Modify your basic analysis procedure as follows to incorporate the element birth and death feature:

6.2.1 Build the Model

While in PREP7, create all elements-even those that won't be activated until later load steps. You cannot create
new elements outside of PREP7.

6.2.2 Apply Loads and Obtain the Solution

Perform the following actions within SOLUTION:

6.2.2.1 Define the First Load Step

In the first load step, you must choose the analysis type and all appropriate analysis options:
Command(s):
ANTYPE
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Analysis Type-New Analysis
For a structural analysis, large-deflection effects should be on:
Command(s):
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NLGEOM,ON
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>Analysis Options
For all birth and death applications, you must be sure to set the Newton-Raphson option explicitly in the first
load step, as the program cannot predict the presence of an EKILL command in a subsequent load step:
Command(s):
NROPT
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>Analysis Options
Deactivate [EKILL] all the initially inactive elements that are to be added (reactivated) in later load steps:
Command(s):
EKILL
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Kill Elements
Elements are deactivated (or activated) in the first substep of the load step, and maintain that status through the
rest of the load step. Note that the default reduction factor used as a stiffness multiplier might not suffice for some
problems. Sometimes, you might have to consider using a more severe reduction factor. To provide a new value
for the reduction factor:
Command(s):
ESTIF
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>Other>StiffnessMult
Nodes that are not connected to any active elements may "float," or pick up stray degree of freedom (DOF)
responses. In some cases, you might want to constrain inactive DOFs [D, CP, etc.] to reduce the number of
equations to be solved, and to avoid ill-conditioning. However, constraining inactive DOFs can become more
important for cases in which you want to reactivate elements with a specific shape (or temperature, etc.). Of
course, you must be sure to remove such artificial constraints when you reactivate elements. You must also
remove nodal loads from inactive DOFs (i.e., at nodes that are not connected to any active elements). Similarly,
you must specifically add nodal loads (if any) to reactivated DOFs.
Part of your input listing could look like this for your first load step:
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! First load step

TIME,...
NLGEOM,ON
NROPT,FULL
ESTIF,...
ESEL,...
EKILL,...
ESEL,S,LIVE
NSLE,S
NSEL,INVE
D,ALL,ALL,0
NSEL,ALL
ESEL,ALL
D,...
F,...
SF,...
BF,...
SAVE
SOLVE

! Sets TIME value (optional for static analyses)

! Turns large-deflection effects on
! You must explicitly set the Newton-Raphson option
! Sets non-default reduction factor (optional)
! Selects elements to be deactivated in this load step
! Deactivates selected elements
! Selects all active elements
! Selects all active nodes
! Selects all inactive nodes (those not attached to any
! active elements)
! Constrains all inactive DOFs (optional)
! Selects ALL nodes
! Selects ALL elements
! Adds constraints as appropriate
! Adds nodal loads to active DOFs as appropriate
! Adds element loads as appropriate
! Adds body loads as appropriate

Please see the TIME, NLGEOM, NROPT, ESTIF, ESEL, EKILL, NSLE, NSEL, D, F, SF, and BF
command descriptions for more information.

6.2.2.2 Subsequent Load Steps

In your remaining load steps, you can deactivate and reactivate elements as desired. As before, be sure to apply
and delete constraints and nodal loads as appropriate.
To deactivate elements, use one of these methods:
Command(s):
EKILL
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Kill Elements
To reactivate elements, use one of these methods:
Command(s):
EALIVE
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Activate Elem
! Second (or subsequent) load step:
TIME,...
ESEL,...
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EKILL,...
! Deactivates selected elements
ESEL,...
EALIVE,...
! Reactivates selected elements
...
FDELE,...
! Deletes nodal loads at inactive DOFs
D,... ! Constrains inactive DOFs
...
F,... ! Adds nodal loads as appropriate to active DOFs
DDELE,...
! Deletes constraints from reactivated DOFs
SAVE
SOLVE

Please see the TIME, ESEL, EKILL, EALIVE, FDELE, D, F, and DDELE command descriptions for
more information.

6.2.3 Review the Results

For the most part, you will follow standard procedures when postprocessing an analysis that contains
deactivated or reactivated elements. However, you should realize that "killed" elements are still present in your
model, even though they make an insignificant contribution to the stiffness (conductivity, etc.) matrix. Therefore,
they will be included in element displays, output listings, etc. For example, deactivated elements will be included
in nodal results averaging (PLNSOL command or menu path Main Menu>General Postproc>Plot
Results>Nodal Solu) and will "smear" the results. The entire element printout for deactivated elements should
be ignored, since many items computed make little physical sense. A suggestion is to use selecting (ESEL
command or menu path Utility Menu>Select>Entities) to remove deactivated elements for element displays
and for other postprocessing operations.

6.2.4 Using ANSYS Results to Control Birth and Death

At times, you will not explicitly know the location of elements that you need to deactivate or reactivate. For
instance, if you want to "kill" melted elements in a thermal analysis (i.e., to model the removal of melted material),
you will not know the location of those elements beforehand; you will have to identify them on the basis of their
ANSYS-calculated temperatures. When the decision to deactivate or reactivate an element depends on the
value of an ANSYS result item (such as temperature, stress, strain, etc.), you can use commands to identify and
select the critical elements.
To identify the critical elements:
Command(s):
ETABLE
GUI:
Main Menu>General Postproc>Element Table>Define Table
To select the critical elements:
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Command(s):
ESEL
GUI:
Utility Menu>Select>Entities
You could then deactivate or reactivate the selected elements. (You could also use the ANSYS Parametric
Design Language to write a macro to perform such an operation. See the APDL Programmer's Guide for more
information.)
To deactivate the selected elements:
Command(s):
EKILL, ALL
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Kill Elements
To reactivate the selected elements, use one of these methods:
Command(s):
EALIVE,ALL
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>-Load Step Opts-Other>Activate Elem
The following simplified input listing demonstrates how you might deactivate elements that rupture when their total
strain has exceeded some critical value:
/SOLU
! Enter SOLUTION
...
! Typical solution procedure
SOLVE
FINISH
!
/POST1
! Enter POST1
SET,...
ETABLE,STRAIN,EPTO,EQV ! Store total equivalent strain in ETABLE
ESEL,S,ETAB,STRAIN,0.20 ! Select all elements with total equivalent strain
! greater than or equal to 0.20
FINISH
!
/SOLU
! Re-enter SOLUTION
ANTYPE,,REST
EKILL,ALL
! Deactivate selected (overstrained) elements
ESEL,ALL
! Restore full element set
...
! Continue with solution
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Please see the ETABLE, ESEL, ANTYPE, and EKILL command descriptions for more information.

6.3 Further Guidelines

Constraint equations [CE, CEINTF, etc.] cannot be applied to inactive DOFs. (Inactive DOFs occur
when a node has no active ("alive") elements attached to it.)
You can model stress-relieving operations (such as annealing) by deactivating and then reactivating
elements.
In nonlinear analyses, be careful not to deactivate or reactivate elements in such a way as to create
singularities (such as sharp re-entrant corners in a structural analysis) or sudden large changes in stiffness.
Such situations are likely to cause convergence difficulties.
If the model is entirely linear (has no contact or other nonlinear element present, and the material is linear)
except for birth and death elements, ANSYS will treat the analysis as linear, and will not set
SOLCONTROL,ON.
The FULL Newton-Raphson option with adaptive descent turned on often yields good results in analyses
that incorporate element birth and death. To use this option with adaptive descent turned on:
Command(s):
NROPT,FULL,,ON
GUI:
Main Menu>Solution>Analysis Options
You can retrieve a parameter whose value will indicate the status (active or inactive) of an element
[*GET,Par,ELEM, n, ATTR, LIVE] (Utility Menu> Parameters>Get Scalar Data). This parameter
could be used in APDL logical branching ([*IF], etc.) or in other applications in which you need to
monitor the birth-death status of an element.
You might be tempted to try to deactivate or reactivate elements by changing their material properties
[MPCHG] (Main Menu>Preprocessor> Material Props>Change Mat Num).
However, you must proceed cautiously if you attempt such a procedure. The safeguards and restrictions
that affect "killed" elements will not apply to elements that have their material properties changed in
SOLUTION. (Element forces will not be automatically zeroed out; nor will strains, mass, specific heat,
etc.) Many problems could result from careless use of MPCHG. For instance, if you reduce an element's
stiffness to almost zero, but retain its mass, it could result in a singularity if subjected to acceleration or
inertial effects.
One application of MPCHG would be in modeling construction sequences in which the strain history of a
"born" element is maintained. Using MPCHG in such cases will enable you to capture the initial strain
experienced by elements as they are fitted into the displaced nodal configuration.
The load step file method [LSWRITE] for solving multiple load steps cannot be used with the birth-death
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option, because it will not write the status of deactivated or reactivated elements to the load step file. Birth
and death analyses having multiple load steps must therefore be performed using a series of explicit
SOLVE commands (Main Menu>Solution>Current LS).

6.4 Where to Find Examples

The ANSYS Verification Manual consists of test case analyses demonstrating the analysis capabilities of the
ANSYS program. While these test cases demonstrate solutions to realistic analysis problems, the ANSYS
Verification Manual does not present them as step-by-step examples with lengthy data input instructions and
printouts. However, most ANSYS users who have at least limited finite element experience should be able to fill
in the missing details by reviewing each test case's finite element model and input data with accompanying
comments.
The following is the element birth and death test case that the ANSYS Verification Manual includes:
VM194 Element Birth/Death in a Fixed Bar with Thermal Loading
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