Does behaviour of RBE2 element changes when the meshes are not perfectly coincident ?

ECor
ECor Altair Community Member
edited December 2022 in Community Q&A

Hello, 

 

I am attaching a support to a base plate, to analyse the load transfer to the base plate. The problem is that meshes are not coincident, and thus, I can't do an equivalence to join the components (cf. image below, support in grey and base plate in blue).

image

I am working with Nastran, and I have thought about joining them with RBE2 elements (using Spotweld tool). As the meshes are not coincident, the RBE2 will not be straight and therefore my question. If I choose to link the 6 dof in the RBE2 element it should not be a problem that the RBE2 are not straight, right ? Otherwise, do you have any other idea to link these two components ?

PS.: by straight I mean that the RBE2 is not perpendicular to both surfaces/components.

Thank you in advance !

Cordially, 

              EC 

Answers

  • Adriano A. Koga
    Adriano A. Koga
    Altair Employee
    edited December 2022

    Hi,

    I believe the general behavior, far from the connection area will be the same.

    Some local differences might be present, but neglectible in general.

    Another option would be using a contact (bonded/glue) to connect these dissimilar meshes.

    It would work perfectly to transfer your loads.

    I'm not Nastran expert, but I remember they have these glue contacts.