Modeling releases in connection between walls and floors 1

[EKnivel]

Hello fellow engineers.

I'm modeling a building with resisting masonry walls, some of them with large tickness. The floors are in concrete (with precast beams), most of them with unidirectional behaviour.

I'm using them to apply floor loads and also to in some way connect the other elements. However, I don't want their flexure curvature to influence the behaviour of the masonry walls, since they are only supported in them (pinned), and so isn't a rigid connection. I'm using shell elements for both the walls and the floors.

Is there a way to implement a release in shells like the "Assign-Frame-Releases/Partial Fixity" regarding frame elements? I was thinking of creating a boundary with small shell elements in the slab, in which I would greatly reduce bending stiffness. Is there any other way to do this that you know of?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[SteeliestFire55]

It isn't as straight forward with shells as it is with frames.

https://wiki.csiamerica.com/display/tutorials/Modeling+simply+supported+shells

 

[stressed]

you might also try changing the stiffness modifiers of the bending directions of shell elements to a tiny number like .001 in order to simulate a pinned connection. You can do that when you define an area element or by selecting area shell elements and Assign>Area>Area stiffness modifiers

 

[EKnivel]

Thanks for the help SteeliestFire55, i'm going to try that solutions and see how it goes.

@stressed: Yeah, that was more or less what I was thinking to do, and use Edge Constraints to connect the small shell elements to the others, since the nodes don't coincide. However, I would like to know if there were other options besides that one...