Dynamic parameter variation possibility...

Altair Forum User

Hi friends,

This forum is answering many of my questions. Thanks to all those who contribute for that. Here I come up with another question.

I am modelling a lorry chassis. I have made the cross members and side members as shell to simulate the real situation. I need to do a parametric study on the member thicknesses. So I need to change the thickness at a go in Hypermesh. Is it possible to define thickness in Hypermesh for a shell element (as shown in the picture below). Sorry for this question because I am new to Hypermesh. I know that thickness of shell elements can be modified in Patran/Nastran but I am not sure about Hypermesh. Btw, my solver is Nastran.

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Altair Forum User

Saravanan,

For NASTRAN, you assign a 'property' collector in HyperMesh to the 'component' collector that contains the shell elements. The property (PSHELL) collector is where the thickness is stored. It is easily changed for a sensitivity study. You might also consider running an Optistruct optimization to determine the thickness, since the setup is so similar to NASTRAN.

Eric