ANSYS - Is there a capability to accurately model corroded areas in a FE model with shell elements

[Kbettle]

I often encounter problems that involve corroded areas on pressure vessels and other pieces of equipment. Normally when assessing these problems i will be given a table of measurements of corrosion depth for a certain area of the vessel wall

when inputting this into an FE model it often requires some degree of assumption as to how to model the corroded area e.g. model the entire corroded area to the same thickness as the minimum measured thickness. which is fine in certain circumstances but maybe overly conservative in others.

I've been wondering if there is any way within design modeller or through ACT extensions in ANSYS that i can input a corrosion grid (e.g. a table indicating the area of the wall and the thickness measured) and have ansys mesh that area to the measured thickness in the table?

I imagine this may be possible with shell elements, but have been unable to work out an easy way to accomplish it.

 

[rickfischer51]

Might be able to do this with an APDL command snippet. Take a look at the SECFUNCTION command.

Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory