The Linear Elastic Material node adds the equations for a linear elastic shell and an interface for defining the elastic material properties.

By adding the following subnodes to the Linear Elastic Material node you can incorporate many other effects:

A Shell Local System subnode is always added. In this node you specify the coordinate system in which material orientations and results are interpreted. You can add several Shell Local System nodes in order to control the local directions on different boundaries.

Select a linear elastic Solid model — Isotropic, Orthotropic, or Anisotropic and enter the settings as described for the Linear Elastic Material for the Solid Mechanics interface. Note that:

To display this section, click the Show More Options button () and select Advanced Physics Options in the Show More Options dialog box.

If the Solve for out-of-plane strain components check box is selected, extra degrees of freedom will be added for computing the out-of-plane strain components. This formulation is similar to what is used for plane stress in the Solid Mechanics and Membrane interfaces, and it is computationally somewhat more expensive than the standard formulation. In the default formulation, the out-of-plane strain in the shell is explicitly computed from the stress. This may cause circular references of variables if you for example want the constitutive law to be strain dependent. If you encounter such problems, use the alternative formulation.

If a study step is geometrically nonlinear, the default behavior is to use a large strain formulation in all domains. There are however some cases when you would still want to use a small strain formulation for a certain domain. In those cases, select the Geometrically linear formulation check box. When selected, a small strain formulation is always used, independently of the setting in the study step.

Physics tab with Shell selected:

Physics tab with Plate selected: