Surface-solid connection with continuous meshing fails

[TomHia]

Hi again,

(inventor 2021)

I'm trying to achieve continuous mesh between surface and solid bodies following the AU presentation page 7 but it just fails and the surfaces fly away...other than that it looks great.

Is there some sort of parameter I'm missing? I can't figure this out...

My example attached.

If I fix the small surface (T representing the thickness of the plate) the outcome is fine for the loaded surface (but the "wall" plate is ignored):

This means the surface representing T thickness does not hold on to the plate...even though mesh is continuous and even if I apply bonded (offset bonded) contacts between the small surface and the plate.

 

[John_Holtz]

Hi @TomHia 

Actually, it worked much better than it should have! (Continuous meshing is not designed to match the nodes on solids, so it is a minor miracle that the shell is connected to the solid.)

The problem is the suggestion to make the tee shell thin is incorrect. By making it thin, the tee shell can bend a lot, and that allows the end of the cantilever to deflect a lot. here is a side view showing the effect.

The tee plate should be the same thickness as the plate itself.

John

[TomHia]

Oh, that's what I was thinking of based on the close up side view (I noticed it bends a little). But I disregarded the idea cause it was in the AU guide...

But then again, if it's supposed to facilitate a connection between a solid and a surface it can't have a thickness of the plate, can it? One half of the surface ends up in the "wall" material and one half outside. It doesn't seem right.

By the way, here's a more formal article which showcases "T-connection" but still doesn't clarify how to specify the connecting surface's idealisation or contact. 

I've run several tests on generic cantilever example and I obtain the best results (within 2% error) with continues meshing and an offset bonded contact between the interface surface and the solid. Still the results are a bit skewed due to the thickness of the interface surface being equal to the solid's thickness for proper stiffness application at the cost of node interference.