Learning Forum

[luis.serra5]

Hi! I am currently doing my thesis where I have to simulate an impact in a guardrail post. I tried to simulate this problem with solid bodies and shell bodies. When I did the simulation with solid bodies, everything worked fine but when I tried to simulate the problem with Shells, a body got separate from the main structure, what was not supposed to happen. I used Bonded Contact between the bodies. Can you help me solve this issue? Thank You.

[Chris Quan]

When solid body to solid body is bonded, their distance is probably very small and less than the Maximum Offset.
When one of the solid body is simplified to become a surface body, their distance from the surface body (for example, mid-surface of the original solid body) to the solid body may not be small. It is at least half of the shell thickness if mid-surface is used to represent the shell body.
You need to increase the Maximum Offset in the Definition of the Bonded Contact from 1E-4 mm to a value that is larger than the distance between the surface body and the solid body. This will ensure that both bodies can be bonded together.

[luis.serra5]

Thank you! Your suggestion really helped my model to converge.