We are currently working on a student project involving the structural analysis of a skateboard deck. Our main interest is to evaluate the deflection and stress distribution under a static load case.
Would you recommend modeling the board as solid (3D) layers, considering that each plywood layer has a thickness of approximately 1–1.5 mm, and assigning the material properties according to the grain orientation of each layer?
Alternatively, would it be more appropriate to model the deck using shell elements with a layered composite definition?
If it’s a thin (thickness < 1/10 of a typical global dimension such as length/width) laminate, composite shells would be the best way, but they need keywords edits. You can find some examples here. However, if you encounter any of the known issues with CalculiX’s shell elements (see this: Known CalculiX limitations), you may need to use the Thicken Shell Mesh tool to obtain multiple layers of solid elements instead.