Question:
When performing plastic design, I get stresses displayed that exceed the yield criterion. Have I done anything wrong?
Answer:
You are working with a plastic material behavior in your file and have entered the yield strength. Therefore, the stress in your model will not increase, because the material starts to plasticize once the stress is exceeded.
The stress limitation on the yield strength always refers to an entire finite element (a surface element or a solid element). Therefore, the stress must always be considered with the "Constant in elements" smoothing in the plastic design.
This smoothing is activated for surface elements in the Project navigator - Display "Results → Surfaces → Distribution of internal forces/stresses → Constant in elements".
For solid elements, the entry can be found under "Results → Solids → Distribution of internal forces/stresses → Constant in elements".
In RF‑STEEL Surfaces, you can also set the stresses to "Constant in Elements".
To do this, click on [Details] and go to the "Options" tab.
This technical article explains all smoothing variants of the surface results in detail.