if node 1 belongs to four element, the element stress on node 1 will have four different values. To keep the stress contour smooth in node 1, I always set the nodal average button on, How do Mentat nodal average works? Is the average value should be in range of the Max and Min element stress in this node? Thanks
Marc calculates stress at element integration points. In post-processing, stress is extrapolated to nodes from integration points and then all values from associated elements are averaged (total value/# of elements) to get the nodal stress.