Cohesive Interface Element

I am trying to model crack propagation via cohesive zone modeling; I need to use cohesive interface element. Does cohesive element (interface element) exists in Trelis pro?

The manual wrote that this feature is still under development; does anyone knows when this feature will be fully implemented?

Thanks

This is only implemented in 2D, so unfortunately it is not supported in 3D. To get something into 3D you’ll need to create a surface that approximates the crack and then create a block that contains the quad elements of that ‘crack’ surface. Trelis does not support a ‘FLATHEX’ in our export, so the Patran neutral file will need to be modified so that these quads in block 2 are converted into flat hexes.

Here is an example:

reset
brick x 1
create vertex on curve 2 4 fraction 0.37
high vert 9
vert 9 copy move y -0.3
vert 10 copy move y .2
create curve spline vertex 10 12 11 9
webcut volume 1 sweep curve 13 direction 0 0 -1
curve 13 move z -0.37
imprint vol all with curve 13
del curve all
del vert all
merge all
mesh vol all
block 1 vol 1 2
block 2 surface 18
export patran “crack.out” overwrite

Hi there,
I’m sorry to reopen an old question.
I saw that FLATHEX and FALTWEDGE elements are available in Developer mode.
Could you provide me with an example of how to add a cohesive surface adn export it into exodus.
Thanks
Andrea

Correct. These element types are available in Dev mode. They were last worked on in 2007, but they were not finished and are not supported in any exporter. We’ll need to remove them from the GUI and the documentation until they are available element types.