shells and beams in ANSYS

[Phillip P]

Hello. I'm currently designing next year's frame in ANSYS and am having trouble using beam and shells together.
Is their any easy way, in ANSYS, to connect a shell along a beam element?
My problem stems from that I already have an idea of how the beams should be laid out, and when I try and add a shell in between them, I wind up having to delete the beam (because its not connected to the shell along its length) then add it back node by node. This is a pain, because depending on the mesh density of the shell, I could wind up doing this hundreds of times, which takes time and increases the chances of me messing it up somewhere.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanx : )

[Phillip P]

Hello. I'm currently designing next year's frame in ANSYS and am having trouble using beam and shells together.
Is their any easy way, in ANSYS, to connect a shell along a beam element?
My problem stems from that I already have an idea of how the beams should be laid out, and when I try and add a shell in between them, I wind up having to delete the beam (because its not connected to the shell along its length) then add it back node by node. This is a pain, because depending on the mesh density of the shell, I could wind up doing this hundreds of times, which takes time and increases the chances of me messing it up somewhere.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanx : )

[Travis Garrison]

Have you tried setting up your surface such that it has a couple say 1-3 keypoints along the length where you want to attach your beam (ie if you have a rectangle, try 3 rectangles)? Then use the keypoints to attach you beam as they won't disapear on you with every mesh change...

It's not ideal but it should make a decenent aproximation, and it's the best I can think of without ansys in front of me...

-Travis

[MikeWaggoner at UW]

Rebuild the tube in command line... You can just mate one node, fine the command line, write down the nodes you want mated, and copy/paste with minor changes (if the nodes are sequential, you can use excel if you're clever).

[Phillip P]

Hey, thanx for all the help guys, but I think I figured it out.
First I define and mesh the area, then I can go back and mesh the beam on a line that is around the area using the mesh tool.
It seems to be working, and I honestly don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.
Again, thanx for all the help. : )

[ben]

Make sure you equivalence the mesh having done this.

Ben

[buddy]

As the joke here at work goes:

What's taking so long to mesh that? Just vmesh,all http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

make sure your beam,shell interface represents the real connection, i.e. do you have enough merged nodes along the shell/beam interface to represent the physical connection (weld, rivets, etc..)

buddy