Shell
Use the Shell () dataset is available in 3D and 2D axisymmetry, under the More 3D Datasets submenu, to simultaneously visualize the top and bottom surfaces of a shell using, for example, surface and arrow plots. The main purpose is to give a representation which matches the physical thickness of a shell. The results displayed on the two sides will be different as long as the selected quantity has an explicit dependence on the thickness. Right-click the Shell node to add a Selection subnode if desired.
Data
Select the Solution dataset to use for the shell postprocessing from the Dataset list. Only 3D and 2D axisymmetric Solution datasets that contain one or more surfaces are available.
Layers
In order to have better visualization inside a layered shell, select the Separate levels check box. This setting creates slices on the mesh nodes in the through-thickness direction. Increase the Refinement (default: 1) to have more evaluation points in the through-thickness direction.
In this section, you further specify the parameters for the top and bottom surfaces:
Top Parameters
Under Top parameters, enter the following parameters that control the evaluation of the top surface:
The local z-coordinate, in the range [1, 1], for thickness-dependent results. Usually the value should be set to 1.
Bottom Parameters
Under Bottom parameters, enter the parameters that control the evaluation of the bottom surface (similar to those for the top surface). The local z-coordinate should usually have the value 1.
Position
Under Orientation, enter the X-component, Y-component, and Z-component for the components of the displacement direction vector, such as the global normal vector components nx, ny, and nz or the shell normal components, such as shell.nlX, shell.nlY, and shell.nlZ. This is the direction in which she displayed boundary is offset from the meshed boundary.
Under Displacement of normals, enter the X-component, Y-component, and Z-component for the displacements of normals (default: 0). Here you can enter an additive correction to the shell’s orientation, which should be applied when evaluating in the spatial frame.
Under Distance, enter a value for the displacement magnitude in the Distance field. For example, shell.z_offset+0.5*shell.z*shell.d, which is an offset, if using, plus half the shell thickness. The local z-coordinates, as given in the Layers section, are inserted in the distance expression in order to position the top and bottoms surfaces. The surface is offset in the direction given under Orientation. By using distance values larger that the actually shell thickness, it is possible to enhance the result presentation for very thin shells.
Advanced
In this section, you can adjust the area and length scale factors, if desired. Doing so could be useful to take into account the fact that the area scale is not the same for both surfaces created by revolving a line, for example. By default, the values in the Area scale factor and Line scale factor fields are set by the physics interface.
Shell datasets require the Structural Mechanics Module.