Question
I like the animated failure mechanisms, but is LimitState:GEO able to also calculate / display deflections?
Answer
LimitState:GEO uses ultimate limit state calculations to determine the collapse state quickly and directly, without the need for the iterative steps that you might traditionally find in an elastic analysis (the iterations you see in the Output Pane when solving in LimitState:GEO are related to the optimization process). As a result, deflections are not available as part of the output. However, the process does calculate relative instantaneous velocities of each object (block) in the critical failure mechanism - hence it is able to animate the solution.
For more information on the animation and deflections, please refer to the User Guide.