2.4.3.4. Sensors

Sensors are used to measure physical quantities such as force, pressure, etc. within the simulation. Fundamentally, a sensor is a function that maps the state of the simulation within some specified space to a scalar or vector value. These functions are often “higher-order”, i.e. reduction operations such as max or add.

Defining a sensor in MPM involves specifying the sensor type, the material point variable to measure, and the region of the domain to measure. The sensor type is specified using the sensor_type parameter, and the material point variable to measure is specified using the mp_var parameter. The region of the domain to measure is specified using the region parameter. The sensor type can be one of the following: