I am modelling fairliy simple shell pipe compression. I to use the ELFORM for my pipe shell elements 23.
However when I run the simulation I get the error because of this triangle elements. It says it has a zero normal vector. Actually, when I check its vector it has one.
Do you have any suggestions to overcome this ?
Hi @fatihk,
It looks like ELFORM 23 is only for quad shells so it sounds like you might be running into an issue with your ELFORM conflicting with the tria element in the part. Certain ELFORMS are meant for certain element types (quad vs tria) so you may need to add a *Control_Shell card to signify which ELFORM to automatically change tria elements to if the current one is not applicable. You would need to set ESORT = 1 or 2.
This might fix that error
Thank you for the reply @negativevolume,
I activated the *CONTROL_SHELL card like below. However, I still get the same error.
*** Error 30099 (INI+99)
element ID 8197 has a zero normal vector.
@fatihk Just to attempt to isolate the problem, could you change the ELFORM of the part to ELFORM=2 and see if you still get an error?
@negativevolume I could change it nevertheless, since the elements are quadratic I got prolem with ELFORM2.
As a solution, I remeshed the part with HM, and used ELFORM23 had no problem.
Thanks.
@fatihk Okay great to hear. Sometimes the issues can occur during the meshing process as well which may be why remeshing solved the issue. Also, check the normal direction of your shell elements and make sure that they are all facing the same direction within a single part.