shell to solid connection in hypermesh

Xiaolei Liu

Hi, Here is my problem:

I have a beam structure like this:

 

I have established the model containing solid (upper and bottom concrete slab) and shell (steel plate web) elements in hypermesh package. The problem is that I don’t know how to handle the contact relationship between the shell and solid for getting the stress continuity on the contact of the shell to solid. And I have tried tie interaction in ABAQUS, but the high stress happen in the contact position. For weaken this stress concentration phenomenon of stress, I followed the PDF guide to establish a coat from the solid element and then use the equivalence function to achieve connection. based on the situation that the deflection and stress are the important point in the structure, but once i define the material parameter of the coat, the stiffness increase, the deflection reduce, so I have no idea to define the material parameters and thickness of the generated coat shell element, I hope there will be someone can give me some suggestions on material definetion on the coat or other shell to solid connecting methods (it is better to describe the operation in hypermesh), thank you very much indeed.

PaulAltair

This is more of an Abaqus question re best practice for that code. But when doing similar in OptiStruct it is typical to make the coating shell very thin and membrane only (1 IP through thickness) to prevent it affecting the stiffness of the structure too much. 

I'm not sure this will stop you getting stress concentrations at the tied interface points though!

Xiaolei Liu

thanks for your answer. I have tried  coating with small thickness in hypermesh, and i extract the normal stress distribution along the beam depth in the section of the middle span, this shows this method can not solve my problem, . Nevertheless, thank you very much for your advice