Confine "structuralBoundaryLoad" to a specific region of a face?

I'm trying to apply a surface traction as in: https://www.mathworks.com/help/pde/ug/deflection-analysis-of-a-bracket.html

using: https://www.mathworks.com/help/pde/ug/pde.structuralmodel.structuralboundaryload.html

However, I don't want to apply the load the an entire face. I want to limit it to a specific region of the face (which ideally I can specify as the face of a particular element using the node references). Is this possible?

Answer 1

[Ravi Kumar]

You can use the function_handle approach to define the load to act only on a portion of a Face. You can identify the portion of the face using the geometric coordinates that solver provides to the function you define. Take a look at the the documentation for using function_handle in defining boundary conditions - Solve PDEs with Nonconstant Boundary Conditions. Note that the document shows use of function_handle for applyBoundaryCondition the same approach would also work for structuralBoundaryLoad.

Answer 2

[Wesley Legant]

Thanks Ravi. This is helpful, but not quite what I'm hoping to accomplish. I'm unclear what are the geometric coordinates that solver is feeding to my user function.

Do you know if there is a way to specify custom faces in the model? E.G. if I wanted to apply a load or boundary constraint only to a specific side of a single element. Ideally, I'd give the model a new "face" with the corresponding element/nodes and then just run everything that way. This is what I've done before in other FEM packages.

Thanks again.

[Ravi Kumar]

I don't think it is possible to create your own face/region using a set of element faces.