*NODAL THICKNESS

Keyword type: model definition

This option is used to assign a thickness to a node or to a node set. There are no parameters. This keyword only makes sense for nodes belonging to plane stress/strain elements, shell elements and beam elements. For all of these except for the beam elements one thickness value should be given. For plane stress/strain and shell elements this is the thickness in normal direction. The normal direction can be defined by using the *NORMAL keyword card. If none is defined, the normal is calculated based on the geometrical data. For beam elements two thicknesses can be defined: one in 1-direction and one in 2-direction. The 1-direction can be defined on the *BEAM SECTION card, the 2-direction by the *NORMAL card.

The *NODAL THICKNESS card takes precedence over any other thickness definitions if the NODAL THICKNESS parameter was selected on the *BEAM SECTION, *SHELL SECTION or *SOLID SECTION card. Right now, it cannot be used for composite materials.

For structures in which axisymmetric elements (type CAX*) are present any thickness defined on the present card for plane stress/strain and shell elements applies to 360 $^\circ$ .

First line:

*NODAL THICKNESS

Following line:

Node or set of nodes previously defined
Thickness 1
Thickness 2

Example:

*NODAL THICKNESS
22,0.05,0.08

assigns to node 22 the thickness 0.05 and 0.08. Any plane stress or shell element containing node 22 will have a local thickness of 0.05 unit lengths at node 22. Any beam element containing node 22 will have a thickness of 0.05 unit length in local 1-direction and a thickness of 0.08 unit length in local 2-direction.

Example files: shell1.