I am fairly inexperienced with using shell elements, and I’m puzzled as to why I can’t get my model to simulate completely. I have a part that is thin-walled throughout, with a tubular structure near the top that is also part of the body. I’ve tried modeling it as one single surface model, two separate models with coincident edges, and three separate models with coincident edges (see picture).
The model will be loaded with hydrostatic pressure from the back of the beige section shown. I have attempted to use contact pairs with tied surface interactions to connect the separate bodies, but I keep getting errors about nonpositive jacobian determinants in a few elements. I’ve been reading up on what might be causing this error and it suggests the coincident geometry might be part of it. Are there other factors that might cause the same error? I could model the tubular structure as a beam element with a given stiffness, but I would like to model it as a shell if possible because the design may change and it’s easier to communicate the results with a visually representative model. I would appreciate any recommendations on how else I might go about setting up this model.
