does connected wall shear loads?

[Shane N]

I am modeling a circular concrete bin in Risa 3D with several connected walls with sheared node(joint), are they gonna transfer loads between each other? if not should I just use plate?

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Are those wall panels or plate / shell elements?

Wall panels are "super elements", which means the 4 nodes that define the wall panel are not the way they're really represented in the FEM model. Instead the program post-processes the wall panel and breaks it into a series of plate elements to ensure connectivity to any nodes within the wall or on its edge.

Now plate / shell elements are true Finite Elements and they only connect to their 4 nodes. So, if it's corner node is also the corner node of an adjacent plate, then they connect. But, if plate A's corner node falls along the middle edge of plate B, then A will not be connected to B at that location.

There should be a good topic on plate meshing in the RISA help file.... with images since a picture will explain this better than I can do in text.

 

[Shane N]

that's what I figured, I was trying to use "wall element" because it can automatic design the reinforcing, "Plate" can only do the analysis, you have to read the result and then do the design yourself. I will try both to see the difference.