Path through thickness of shell for stress evaluation

[wwang123]

Hello!


I would like to find the stress distribution through the thickness of a multilayered Shell281 composite, which in my coordinate system is the z-direction. At the moment, I have shell elements associated with attributes of rectangular areas to produce the geometry I want. However, I don't have a second node to define a path through the thickness since that is taken as the shell element. I was thinking about using the nodes used to define shell281, but these are at the midpoint, and not at the edge. Any help on how to approach this or if this is possible?

 

[wwang123]

I have also considered using the max number of integration points for a shell, but I am not sure how to access these points for stress evaluation. What is the command for this, if it exists?