Hi everyone,

At the moment i am assessing the convergence of a static study using a shell mesh. When i plot vM stress against no of DOF, I am finding oscillations I cannot explain. Is this a setup problem?

In the "FEA results" folder there is a .out file. When it is opened in notepad, near the bottom of the file it reads something like:

E R R O R    E S T I M A T I O N
   (for requested elements)

   Total Strain Energy (TSE)        =  0.243454E+03

Anyone knows if this is safe to use this parameter as the total strain energy for the complete structure? It matches the total strain energy calculated from the reaction forces (a few lines above). Do any singularities present in the model render this number useless? If not, I would like to use it in my convergence process.

Thanks, Mark