The Nonlinear static analysis aims to determine displacements, stresses etc under nonlinear static conditions. The nonlinear conditions include plasticity, stress stiffening, large deflection, large strain, hyper-elasticity, contact surfaces and creep etc. Nonlinear static stress analyses produce more accurate stress results than linear static stress analyses for models that undergo loading in a concentrated area, have small features such as a small fillet radius or have constraints that act over small regions. This is because linear static stress analyses only produce stresses based on the initial shape of the object, whereas nonlinear static stress analyses determine stresses based on the object's deformed shape under loading.

Capabilities of Nonlinear static analysis are:

• Part names, part colors, unit of length and material properties from a CAD solid model are captured in the FEA model
• 2-D and 3-D sketching tools including capabilities to draw points, lines, rectangles, arcs, circles, splines and tangent lines and modify sketch objects with commands including copy, divide, fillet, intersect, rotate, mirror, move, parallel, trim/extend and delete
• Complex surface modeling
• Capability to vary plate thickness in a single part
• Beam modeling including:
• Direct access to AISC section property data
• Ability to input beam cross-sectional properties of pipes using outer diameter and wall thickness
• Software wizard for defining tapered beams
• Bolt wizard for creating bolts and other fasteners such as screws and rivets
• Capability to combine all element types available for a given analysis type in a single model