Learning Forum

[Van Toan Nguyen]

Hello everyone,

I am modeling deformation of a thin tube caused by high pressure inside. Material properties of the tube are not uniform along the tube axis. It is seem to be impossible to simulate with solid body (I have tried several times). Therefore, I used shell body with uniform shell thickness at initial state. I succeed for getting deformed shape.My question is: Is there any option to get variation of the tube thickness (Poisson's Ratios were defined in Engineering data)?. I tried to import displacement obtained from simulation of shell body into simulation of solid body, but it seem to be tedious way.

[John Doyle]

If this is a surface body meshed with SHELL181 elements, it is possible to postprocess the new thickness.Refer to Table 181.2 of the Elements Manual for SHELL181. You will find ÔÇÿTHICKÔÇÖ listed as a summable miscellaneous results item (SMISC=17) in this table.

In Workbench, you would need a command object under Solution branch that looks something like the following:
/SHOW,png
set,last,last
esel,s,ename,,181
plesol,smisc,17
/SHOW,term
Be sure to set General Miscellaneous results to ÔÇÿYesÔÇÖ under Analysis Settings=>Output ControlsÔǪ before running the analysis

[John Doyle]

Actually, it looks like we expose this feature in Mechanical GUI, if you have shell bodies in your model.

[Van Toan Nguyen]

Thank you for your reply.
I added a command "et,matid,SHELL181" to convert element type. I also meshed surface body with linear element type. I then followed your guideline.
However the result of direction deformation shows that the shell thick is still uniform
(This is only partial result because the simulation was not fully converged)

[John Doyle]

Is this a surface body or a solid body.
Sorry for the confusion, but this needs to be a surface body to be meshed successfully with shell181 elements. It cannot be a solid body.
Also, I am not sure you will "see" the change in thickness, just a contour plot in the shell181 elements illustrating the distribution of the change.

[Van Toan Nguyen]

Yes , it is surface body. There is only one cylinder surface.

[Van Toan Nguyen]