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### Connecting 1-D and 2-D elements to 3-D elements

The connection of 1-D and 2-D elements with genuine 3-D elements also requires special care and is performed in subroutine ``gen3dconnect.f''. Remember that the expanded elements contain new nodes only, so the connection between these elements and 3-D elements, as defined by the user in the input deck, is lost. It must be reinstated by creating multiple point constraints. This, however, does not apply to knots. In a knot, a expandable rigid body is defined with the original node as translational node (recall that a knot is defined by a translational, a rotational and an expansion node). Thus, for a knot the connection with the 3-D element is guaranteed. What follows applies to nodes in which no knot was defined.

For 1-D beam elements the connection is expressed by the equation (see Figure 90 for the node numbers)

| (168)

Figure 90: Beam element connection

where u stands for any displacement component (or temperature component for heat transfer calculations), i.e. the above equation actually represents 3 equations for mechanical problems, 1 for heat transfer problems and 4 for thermomechanical problems. Notice that only edge nodes of the beam element are used, therefore it can also be applied to middle nodes of beam elements. It expresses that the displacement in the 3-D node is the mean of the displacement in the expanded edge nodes.

For 2-D shell elements the connection is expressed by equation (see Figure 91 for the node numbers)

| (169)

Figure 91: Shell element connection

The same remarks apply as for the beam element.

Finally, for plane strain, plane stress and axisymmetric elements the connection is made according to Figure 92 and equation:

| (170)

Figure 92: Plane and axisymmetric element connection

Node 1 is the zero-z node of the expanded elements. Although a twenty-node brick element does not use zero-z nodes corresponding the the middle nodes of the original 2-D element, they exist and are used in MPC's such as the above equation. The connection is finally established through the combination of the above MPC with the plane strain, plane stress and axisymmetric MPC's linking the zero-z nodes with the negative-z and positive-z nodes.

Next: Applying the SPC's to Up: Expansion of the one-dimensional Previous: Expanding the 1-D and Contents