I have been pushing up the size of shell weldments in terms of quantity of parts, and have been running into more and more issues with the bond connection not working. Should the "global bonded" connections be automatic for any two shells that are contacting edges? I have given up on that and am mostly defining the bonds one pair at a time but even then see a lot of failures unless they are perfectly connected (no gap at all and identical length edges). The worst part of this issue is that a failed bond does not give an error during the mesh which makes it very hard to troubleshoot.
Does anyone have some suggestions or can send me to a guide on how to best set up and bond shell elements for larger studies?
Thanks
Bruce
Sounds to me like you are on the right path here Bruce. I've also struggled with this a lot. In fact I've wasted hours trying to find where bonds are not working. The problem is the same as with most aspects of Simulation - it is just too unpredictable. There needs to be more explicit guidelines on how to get this kind of thing working properly. I put it down to cheap skate software development.
Having got that off my chest, some suggestions that you might find helpful. Try splitting the terminating surface where two shells intersect. Sometimes I will extend a surface to intersect the adjacent surface and in that way get rid of the gap. If you do this and get a compatible bond you should not need to define a contact at the intersection.
I guess you worked out that you find where the shell bonds failed by checking the dsplacement plot. I've heard it said failed bonds can also be checked usng the buckling plots but have never worked out how. Sometimes I will add a fixed restraint to the shells and release the restrainsts one by one to find the ne that is not bonded and creates instability in the model.