Hello everyone,
I have a question concerning shell behaviour, more specifically a phenomenon that seems to be hourglassing after a certain simulation duration. I am working with some car crash models from the CCSA and NHTSA sites, modifying them for experiments etc. I noticed that, after some simulation time, the shell elements start to violently vibrate in what looks like hourglassing modes, but this occurs even with fully integrated QBAT shells, all throughout the model and in regions with almost no loads. Below are comparisons of a model with said phenomenon, not even 2ms apart. This specific one includes a blast load, but others in a pure crash situation also start to show this at some point.
The shell properties are all identical apart from the thickness, i.e. P1 shell, Ishell: 12 QBAT formulation, Ismstr: 4 full geometric nonlinearities,, Ish3n: 2 standard triangle, Dm: 0.05, Dn: 0.05, N: 3, Istrain: 1, Ithick: 1, Iplas, 1. The material models are either Law 2, Law 36 or Law 1. I tried QBAT and QEPH elements, different damping factors and Ismstr settings to no avail.
I'd be very greatful if someone could shed some light on this. Is this actually hourglassing and if so, why does it occur with fully integrated elements? The energy plots show no increase in hourglass energy, but a strong, sudden increase in kinetic and external forces work increase. How can it be remedied? Also, is there a way to delete elements that exceed a certain mass change threshold? I'm aware there's the option to delete elements falling below a set time step, but that does not seem to do the trick in certain contact scenarios.