I am looking for some advice on creating pin elements with a shell model. I have been using truss elements for the pin, but with a shell model the truss elements rotate around all axis. I have not been able to get my model to converge and I believe this is the problem. The model converges when I change the truss elements to beam, but when I do that I no longer have free rotation of the pin.
Solved! Go to Solution.
Solved by John_Holtz. Go to Solution.
Hi there,
Can you attach an image, either of the model itself or a hand drawn sketch? I think that will describe the arrangement of the shells and elements used for the pin, what motions are required, and so on.
I presume you are using MES, correct?
The grey section is the plate/shell model. The blue webbing in the hole is the truss elements used to simulate the pin. The green line from the pin's center is a beam element. The idea is to allow the pin to rotate freely as load is applied to the beam.
It is hard to see the green beam on my system because the inserted image was scaled down, but I think that is secondary to the issue. More importantly, is there a constraint at the intersection of the trusses?
I know your pin is not 0 units long in reality, so I suggest that your spider web of trusses needs to extend out to the ends of the pin. See the attached image.