Automated Load Case Processing and Enveloping

How to automate the processing and enveloping of multiple load cases — identifying critical cases, computing margins and generating summary reports.

Article 12.02Reporting & Automation4 min read

automationload casesenvelopemargin of safetybatch processing

Engineering Task

Processing results from many load cases to identify the critical case at each location and compute enveloped margins of safety.

Workflow

Extract stress at each critical location for each load case
Calculate margin of safety for each location and load case
Identify the governing (minimum) margin at each location across all cases
Generate an envelope table: location, governing case, stress, allowable, margin
Flag negative margins for disposition

Python Example

import pandas as pd

# Results: location, load_case, stress, allowable
results = pd.read_csv("all_load_cases.csv")
results["MS"] = results["allowable"] / results["stress"] - 1

# Envelope: minimum margin at each location
envelope = results.loc[results.groupby("location")["MS"].idxmin()]
envelope.to_csv("margin_envelope.csv", index=False)

# Flag negative margins
governing = envelope[envelope["MS"] < 0]
print(f"Negative margins: {len(governing)} locations")

Benefits

Identifies the governing load case at each location automatically
Reduces manual error in margin calculation and enveloping
Provides a complete, traceable margin table for the stress report
Enables rapid re-analysis when loads or geometry change