topic Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams in Robot Structural Analysis Forum

Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

scamilletti8NRVL — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 09:28:53 GMT

Hi everyone!

I'm experiencing an issue with Tapered Sections in my model.

I need to use tapered sections to represent an additional thickness (extra material). However, after running the analysis, the software only displays results and diagrams for members with constant sections. The members assigned with Tapered Sections do not show any results or diagrams.

I have already tried the following:

Applying the tapered section to multiple members using the Chain option.
Assigning the tapered section individually to each member.

In both cases, the outcome is the same: only the members with constant sections display diagrams and results.

As a reference, if I create a horizontal member using the same section, the results are displayed correctly for that member.

Has anyone encountered this issue before? Is there any setting, modelling condition, or limitation that could cause tapered-section members not to display results or diagrams?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

Krzysztof_Wasik — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:30:38 GMT

Hi @scamilletti8NRVL

Please check local axes orientation for segments not showing results. Probably for those members direction of local Y and Z axes are different than for other members. If it is not the issue please share zipped Robot model for verification.

Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

scamilletti8NRVL — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 10:45:41 GMT

Hello @Krzysztof_Wasik

Thank you for your answer!

All axes are aligned:

I am attaching the model in a .zip file.

Thank you very much in advance for your help!

Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

Krzysztof_Wasik — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:02:17 GMT

Hi @scamilletti8NRVL

It might be caused by duplicated definition of superelements. I would start from correcting this definition. Superements should be continuous and should not overlap. (Check and correct 252 253 243 244)

Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

scamilletti8NRVL — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 12:25:18 GMT

Hello @Krzysztof_Wasik,

Those elements that appear to be “duplicated” are automatically created when sections or loads are generated along the member chain:

I performed a test by deleting all of those automatically generated elements and assigning the tapered section directly to each member. The result was exactly the same:

Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

Rafacascudo — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:28:00 GMT

For some reason the cause is the elastic ground applied to tapered sections . As you delete the springs, member forces appear normally

A workaround for now would be creating several consecutive regular bars ,each one with the average height for that bar position in the chain

Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

Krzysztof_Wasik — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 20:28:18 GMT

Hi @scamilletti8NRVL

While load definition on chain of members you can disable supermember definition by checking "During structure geometry modification assign loads to separate chain members

Problem with moments presentation occurs for superelement 252 defined inside superelement 244 (252 splits 244 int two separate parts) The same is for 243 and 253. Program cannot interpret correctly results for that situation

Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

scamilletti8NRVL — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:22:46 GMT

Hi @Krzysztof_Wasik,

Thank you for the time you are dedicating to this,

I just checked that. I only have the supermember created by the geometry. If I want to apply the load to all members together as a chain, I understand that I should not select this supermember (If it is selected, the load does not seem to recognize that I want to apply it to the entire chain).

When I apply the load with the option "During structure geometry modification assign loads to separate chain members" enabled, the load is assigned to each individual member. However, still I don't get the diagrams.

In addition, the same issue occurs with the self-weight load case. Self-weight is not applied as a chain load and the model is still not showing the diagrams for that case either.

I think, I will follow @Rafacascudo suggestion and create regular sections using the average height of each member. However, by doing so, I will likely lose some sensitivity in the model

Thank you!

Re: Tapered Section is not Showing Results/Diagrams

lauri_barnhart — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 13:57:17 GMT

Welcome to the community, @scamilletti8NRVL.

It looks like you have received a lot of advice on this thread. Did any of the information provided help resolve your issue? If so, please consider clicking on the 'Accept Solution' button on the post(s) that provided the help. If you still need assistance, please provide an update here.

Best,