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Two-Layer Stiffened Shell Buffer Panel with Thickness-Offset Contact
Geometrically nonlinear MITC4 shell-to-shell contact accounting for half-thickness offsets (slaveoffset + masteroffset) and two-sided contact.
Double-skin rockfall shields, dump-body wear liners, and leaf-spring buffer plates consist of thin sheets separated by a small clearance gap. Modeling mid-surfaces without accounting for plate thickness delays contact engagement by (t₁ + t₂)/2. Using WebCAE's thickness-offset shell contact (nlgeom contact slaveoffset=0.003 masteroffset=0.005 twosided=on), the 10 mm mid-surface spacing correctly enforces a 2.0 mm physical clearance between the 6 mm upper sheet and 10 mm lower backing plate, engaging the lower plate into composite bending as soon as deflection exceeds 2 mm.
1. Geometry & FEA Mesh
- •70 nodes, 48 four-node MITC4 shell quads, and 32 stiffener beam elements (300 active DOFs, footprint 1.2 × 0.8 m).
- •Upper impact skin (Slave): t₁ = 6 mm at z = +10 mm with longitudinal edge stiffeners (16 × 24 mm), slaveoffset = 3 mm.
- •Lower backing plate (Master): t₂ = 10 mm at z = 0 mm with transverse support ribs (20 × 28 mm), masteroffset = 5 mm.
- •Clamped ends at x = 0 and x = 1.2 m; central downward impact load on the upper skin.
2. Loads & Boundary Conditions
- •Full 6-DOF clamping of all 20 end nodes along x = 0 m and x = 1.2 m on both upper and lower panels.
- •Downward vertical forces applied to the central impact zone of the upper sheet (z = +10 mm).
- •Two-sided shell contact (nlgeom contact slaveoffset=0.003 masteroffset=0.005 twosided=on, penalty=2e8 N/m).
3. Simulation Results & Findings
- ✓Converges in 6 load steps (22 Newton iterations, 0 cutbacks) with 7 active node-to-surface contact pairs and 0.071 mm max penetration.
- ✓Upper skin deflects by -13.62 mm and drives the lower backing plate down by -12.02 mm across the 2.0 mm initial physical clearance.
- ✓First natural frequency of the double-layer panel is f₁ = 35.97 Hz.
Allows engineers to simulate multi-layer sheet metal assemblies and wear liners with exact thickness offsets directly on shell mid-surfaces.
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- ✓Nonlinear Contact & Buckling (Kσ, MITC4, RBE2/RBE3)
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