Calculating forces on rigid bodies - especially torque

MikeHersee

My plan had included utilising rigid object flexibility by making a relatively soft 'spring' object between two rigid objects to calculate the forces on one imposed by the water, by determining the difference in position between the two rigid bodies either side of the 'spring'. For example, an underwater propellor, with a bearing with resistance, to represent a typical load, would create torque in the axle. Inserting a 'spring' into that axle would enable the torque to be calculated by measuring the difference in position between the axle the propeller is attached to, and the axle with the resistive load. It now appears that Young's modulus or stiffness only applies at a relatively micro level, with regard to particle interactions, and not at a macro level, in terms of item bending. So my original plan to create a mechanism to calculate force appears to have been thwarted.

Given what the known capabilities of version 4.0 are, what then might a viable way be of determining the force on a rigid floating object in the path of waves, especially the rotational torque about an axis? Would it necessarily involve digging into source code and writing particular values to a separate file, or might there be a way utilising XML and standard capabilities? This is a critical issue for me, as it is necessary to know the torque - directly or indirectly - against a resistance in order to calculate the power produced of a device immersed or floating in the sea. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Mike Hersee

Alex

Torque is not computed with our post-processing tools so you have to use the info we can compute (force at a point x distance) or you have to create your own post-processing code to compute it

Regards