{"id":2730,"date":"2015-03-12T14:20:04","date_gmt":"2015-03-12T14:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2730"},"modified":"2017-08-17T15:21:32","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T14:21:32","slug":"shells-in-solidworks-simulation-2015-part-1-basics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/03\/shells-in-solidworks-simulation-2015-part-1-basics\/","title":{"rendered":"Shells in SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2015: Part 1 (Basics)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s talk\u00a0about shells<\/a>\u00a0in SOLIDWORKS Simulation. As a general rule, it\u2019s good to consider using them\u00a0if\u00a0thin geometry is present. Yet we often see people stubbornly\u00a0sticking with\u00a0solid\u00a0bodies, probably because there is less initial setup required. But when dealing with very thin parts, you might find yourself stretching both the resources of your system as well as your patience. Why? Because you need a ton of solid (tetrahedral) mesh elements to accurately capture thin\u00a0geometry while avoiding highly distorted elements.<\/p>\n

\"thin<\/a>
Thin part with distorted solid elements
\nModel obtained from: http:\/\/www.3dcontentcentral.com\/download-model.aspx?catalogid=171&id=12907<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lots\u00a0of solid elements means many degrees of freedom, which means longer solve times and massive result data files. Shells can be a life saver in such cases. They\u00a0are finite elements with zero\u00a0physical thickness. A\u00a0special mathematical formulation allows for thickness\u00a0to be taken into account \u2013 think of it as a \u201cvirtual thickness.\u201d This makes shells a good choice\u00a0for components\u00a0that are very thin relative to their other dimensions (length, width, radius of curvature).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to keep in mind\u00a0that shells are an idealization\u00a0since zero physical thickness isn\u2019t possible\u00a0in the real world\u00a0(maybe in some\u00a0bizarre\u00a0multiverse<\/a>\u00a0though)? Also, fair warning for the informed consumers among you:\u00a0post-processing (everything you do once you have results) with shells can be\u00a0a bit more complex than with solids. Whereas with solids you only have one stress value per node, with shells you have four: top, bottom, membrane and bending.<\/p>\n

The good news is that in SOLIDWORKS\u00a0Simulation 2015, shells are easier to work with than ever before. As many of you already undoubtedly know, there\u00a0are three ways you can end up with a shell in a Simulation study:<\/p>\n

a) A Surface Body in SOLIDWORKS<\/strong> \u2013 the simplest case.<\/p>\n

\"surface<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

b) Sheet metal in SOLIDWORKS<\/strong> \u2013 a slightly more complicated case where the sheet metal is a solid body in SOLIDWORKS, but its \u201csheet metal status\u201d is recognized by Simulation and its midsurface gets automatically extracted and defined as a shell. Oh, and the sheet metal body\u2019s thickness automatically gets applied to shell for you\u00a0as well. Fancy!<\/p>\n

\"sheet<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

c) A \u201cmanually\u201d defined shell using the \u201cDefine shell on selected faces<\/strong>\u201d functionality in Simulation \u2013 the case that tends to trip up users the most. We\u00a0start with a solid body in the study, then select one or more faces of the solid to define a shell:<\/p>\n

\"solid<\/a><\/p>\n

But how\u00a0do we make sure the thickness is\u00a0accurately represented? Check back next month for Part 2 of this post which will discuss shell alignment and offset!<\/p>\n

Originally posted by Jay Seaglar in the SOLIDWORKS Tech Blog<\/a><\/p>\n

\"DoubleRedArrow\"<\/a> Find out more on SOLIDWORKS Simulation<\/a>
\n\"DoubleRedArrow\"<\/a> Contact Sales<\/a>
\n\"DoubleRedArrow\"<\/a> Request a Demo<\/a><\/p>\n

\"REP_3Dfor2DBuildingAssemblies_600x90_SAL\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s talk\u00a0about shells\u00a0in SOLIDWORKS Simulation. As a general rule, it\u2019s good to consider using them\u00a0if\u00a0thin geometry is present. Yet we often see people stubbornly\u00a0sticking with\u00a0solid\u00a0bodies, probably because there is less… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[48,25,113],"class_list":["post-2730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solidworks","category-solidworks-simulation","tag-fea","tag-solidworks-2","tag-solidworks-simulation"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3704,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions\/3704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solidapps.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}