ANSYS WB Element Type - Shell281

[cgeng]

Hi All,

I designed a shell of an airfoil in Solidworks, and I imported it into ANSYS Workbench 13 to model. The shell is 5 millimeters thick, and it is going to be a composite shell. As such, I need it to be of the "Shell281" element type with 6 Degrees of Freedom. I inputted "ET,matid,281" into the command part of the geometry section. After inputting everything and running the solution, I get the following error message in the Solution Information:

"Element type 1 is not the same shape as SHELL281. Switching to a different shape is not allowed while elements of type 1 exist."

You can see my whole project tree in the attached image/screenshot. If I don't use the command "ET,matid,281" or I change it to "ET,2,281", ANSYS will mesh it and designate the shell as a Solid187 element type, which only has 3 DOF.

I am not very experienced with using ANSYS WB or Solidworks, and I've tried to search all the online forums for help on this issue without success. If anyone knows how to fix the issue I'm having or has any helpful input, I'd really appreciate it because I'm stuck right now.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[rickfischer51]

It looks like you have a solid model and you cant mesh a solid model with shell elements. The picture looks like the skin of the airfoil has thickness, and the Hex Dominate Method refers to hexahedral elements (i.e. bricks). Export your geometry as a Parasolid, then import it to Design Modeler where you can create a midsurface model suitable for shell meshing.

Rick Fischer
Principal Engineer
Argonne National Laboratory

 

[cgeng]

Thank you Rick. I tried your suggestion, and it worked. The whole process took a long time, so I experimented with other surface types in Solidworks that ANSYS WB would allow me to set as shell elements. It turns out that a "Boundary Surface" works the best. Thank you for your post, though!