Error During Mechanica Solution - Linking Elements

[gpommeranz]

Dear all,

I am having a connectivity issue with a mixed shells and solid assembly in Mechanica (WF5). This is happening between several within several sub-assemblies but I will describe the simpliest one for forum purposes. I have two cylinders connected together via a square tube. The cylinders are *welded* at each end of the tube. I added mid-surfaces for the tube and left the cylinders as solids. An extrude feature that represents the outside diameter of the cylinder was used to cut away material in the square tube to allow the components to be mated together.

When I run autogem, the mesh comes out fine and does not appear to have any connectivity issues. However, when I run a static analysis, the diagnostic output states: "starting solution pass 1" followed by "an error has been encountered in linking elements." The elements in question are those that connect the shells to solids.

I'm wondering if anyone has encountered this before and what might be happening?

Thanks.

 

[shaun8567]

Could you post some pictures of your model? I'm still not 100% clear on what you're trying to do. Also post a picture of the meshed model as well with close ups of the interface.

In the mean time, with respect to your CAD geometry, did you basically "drill" out the inside of the square tube to be a circle (ie you circumscribed a circle around the square that defines inside perimeter of the tube)?

Did Mechanica create bonding elements between the solid elements and the mid-surface?

 

[gpommeranz]

I'm having problems uploading images. Mechanica does create purple bonding elements between my solids and shells. I'll keep trying to get the pics uploaded.

 

[gpommeranz]

I think I got my images uploaded.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2yor95d.jpg

http://i48.tinypic.com/mm4if9.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/s6iycn.jpg