The Sections method is a new feature of the release LIMIT2021. It was developed in order to analyze weld throats in models based on solid meshes. Typical examples are welds joining casted parts with sheets, a typical problem on bogie frames.
The method supports meshes with conforming or tie/glue interfaces between the connected parts. The attached sheet can also consist of shell elements. First and second order tetras, hexas and wedges are possible. The method currently works with result data from Abaqus, Ansys, Nastran, NxNastran and Optistruct.
The software calculates piece wise linear stress distributions in the interface based on nodal forces taken from the finite element analysis. All relevant stress components are obtained. These stresses are equal to structural stresses in the weld throat. They can be directly used for the fatigue assessment or they are transformed to other critical failure planes within the weld throat.
Numerous benchmarks show high accuracy compared to analytical reference solutions. With this new method the weld roots can be assessed without the need of expensive effective notch modelling. The workflow is well documented and fully integrated in LIMIT2021.
Detailed information on the Sections method can be found in the documentation of LIMIT2021 and also here!
