CE 5212 Pavement Design I

Numerical Lab [The ELSYM5 Program]

L: Drive ("Data on Spitfire"). Go to folder: L:\CE5212\,

Or

N: Drive ("Apps on Skyhawk"). Go to folder N:\Courses\CE5212\

o In either case make sure to copy four files: (1) ansi.com (2)

elsym.bat (3) elsym5.exe, and (4) elsym5.ins.

Running the program:

Once you have downloaded the files make sure you write the four files on

the same folder (let say folder "C:\CE5212")

Switch your windows environment to Dos Prompt. (You can do that in Win

95/98 by clicking /Start/programs/MS Dos Prompt.)

If you want to toggle between full screen and an MS DOS window you can do

so by entering: ALT+<ENTER>.

Switch to the folder containing the Elsysm5 program by typing the

command:

CD\CE5212 <enter>

To run the Elsym5 program by typing the commands:

ansi <enter>

The system will echo something similar to:

Then you will type the command:

elsym <enter>

If all is well to this stage the system will come back with the following screen:

At the main menu, if you select "(1) Instructions" the following

screens should come up. (Next pages are invoked by typing

<enter>):

                                    ELSYM5

                   Elastic Layered System with Normal Loads

                                IBM-PC version

The Elastic Layered System computer program (ELSYM5) was modified by

SRA Technologies, Inc., for FHWA under a study titled, "Pavement Design

and Analysis Procedures on Microcomputers." The original

analysis routine was developed at ITTE, University of California at Berkeley. This 

version  contains  interactive  input   and   output

processors  to  assist  the  user  in  the  development of data files.

ELSYM5 will determine the various  component  stresses,  strains,  and

displacements along with principal values in a three-dimensional ideal

elastic layered system.  The layered system being loaded with  one  or

more  identical  uniform  circular  loads normal to the surface of the

system.

All  coordinates  within  the  system  are  described  by  using   the

rectangular  coordinate system (X,Y,Z), with the XY plane at Z=0 being

the top surface of the elastic system where  the  loads  are  applied.

PRESS <CR> TO CONTINUE....

The  positive Z axis extends vertically down from the surface into the

system.

The applied loads are described by any  two  of  the  three  following

items:   load  in pounds, stress in psi, and radius of the loaded area

in inches.  The program determines the missing value.  Each  layer  of

the  system is described by modulus of elasticity, Poisson's ratio and

thickness.  Each layer is  number  with  the  top  layer  as  one  and

numbering each layer consecutively downward.

----------

For more information, see:

"ELSYM5:  Interactive Version, User's Guide," FHWA report, 1985.

 

PRESS <CR> TO CONTINUE....

                                  Operation

The  user  is  presented  with  a  series   of   menus   from   which   data

entry/modification  is chosen.  Each selection displays a form on the screen

which contains the current values for the selected data items.   This  could

be  the  value  from  the  file  being modified, the last value entered when

creating a file, or the program default values.  The program  navigates  the

user from data field to data field in a logical sequence.

At each field, the user has  three  choices:   accept  the  value  shown  by

pressing  just the carriage return, enter a new value, or press function key

F2 to signal that no more data is to be entered or modified on  the  current

screen.   When  the  end of a screen is reached, the user has another oppor-

tunity to modify the data before proceeding.  At all times, the prompt lines

at the bottom of the screen tell the user what options are available.

Output  from the  input processor is a  ELSYM5  data file in the same format

as  used  by the original mainframe version.  The structure of ELSYM5 allows

multiple cases per data file.  When modifying,  one  case  is  read  by  the

program at a time and available for modification.

END OF INSTRUCTIONS. PRESS <CR> TO RETURN TO MAIN MENU.

At the main menu, selecting "(2) Create a New data file" will lead

to another submenu as follows:

At the main menu, selecting "(3) Modify an Existing Data File" will

lead to another submenu as follows:

As far as creating datafiles, make a point of writing to file (step 6) once you have

gone through steps 1 to 5 above. If you need to duplicate similar data with minor

changes you can make changes to an existing file and write in different file name.

Once the input data have been created the analysis can be run by

going back to the main menu and selecting option (4) Perform

Analysis. The following screen will come up when you select this

option:

At this stage you need to type in the data filename. If you survive this

stage the system will ask you whether you want to save the results of

the analysis on not. I will recommend you choose YES. The next

prompt is to ask you the filename for saving the results. You can still

ignore saving simply by choosing "CON" for console (monitor.) You

can also sent the results to a printer by choosing PRN. Otherwise type

in filename to save the output in a text tile.

At this stage the next screen will look like this:

Note the layer number and Z coordinate. Naturally the analysis starts

with the topmost layer and first z-cordinated defined at input stage.

There are four types of analysis you can do as shown in the menu.

Normally you will be interested in strains and deflections. The analysis

is carried out one choice at a time and one layer at a time. Once you

choose the type of analysis to move to the next layer just press 4. The

system will automatically roll the results to the next layer until the

last one. If you press 4 once more after the last layer the system will

go back to the main menu.  So, the procedure is, if for example, after

the above screen you are not interested in any analysis for layer

number 1, press 4 to display the next layer (Every time you press 4 in

this screen the system moves one layer down). Then select the

desired type of analysis, eg. Strains...

Example results, after running the selection "(2) Strains   Normal &

Shear & Principal" looks as follows:

The rest of the game you should be able to pick it as you play around

with the program. Any comments or questions can be brought to my

attention by email, phone call or in class.

Notes:

The program uses US units throughout.

The outputs are written to a plain text (ASCII) file on the same folder. Make

sure you give a Dos valid filename for each analysis you run.

To view the results of analysis you will need to exit the program and edit the

output file using a text editor (Windows 95 comes with a simple text editor.

Just type "EDIT FILENAME.EXT"<ENTER>). Or you may use your common

word processor to open the output file.