Reply To: The solver engine was unable to converge on a solution for the nonlinear problem

[peteroznewman]

It is much better to have a surface to get a shell mesh and assign a thickness.  The shell element calculates stress through the thickness internally and uses a default number of integration points through the thickness. You would only need to increase the number of integration points if you were doing something like a nonlinear materal model with plasticity for example. Integration points in a shell element are like layers of solid elements, but much more efficient in terms of solution time.

Ansys will keep track of the element thickness to curvature ratio and issue a warning if the ratio exceeds a threshold.  If you see that warning, you should reduce the size of the elements so there is less curvature over each element. I don't think there is a warning about element width to thickness.