3D Shell, Membrane, or Rigid Elements

Use the 3D shell, membrane, and rigid elements option to define the *SURFACE card by specifying face identifiers for individual shell, membrane, and rigid elements. In the graphics area, these faces are displayed by special face elements. These face elements have their own normals to define the SPOS and SNEG faces. The face with normals along the underlying element normals define the SPOS faces. In contrast, the face with opposing normals define the SNEG face.

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The 3D shell, membrane, or rigid elements enable the following:

Button

Action

Elements

Opens the Element Selector panel, from which you can select underlying 3D shell, membrane, or rigid elements from the graphic area. The selected elements are highlighted and their normals are displayed. The corresponding Reset button resets the selected elements and hides the normals.

Add

Adds the selected elements to the current surface and creates special face elements for display. It also checks for duplicate faces and displays a message if any are found. By default, SPOS faces are created. In order to create SNEG faces, activate the Reverse check box and click Add.

Note:

The Delete Face tab contains tools to find and delete duplicate faces in the current surface.

Reject

Rejects the recently added faces.