Dear precicers,
I’m trying to use the shell element of CalculiX with OpenFOAM for FSI problems. I find that there is no tutorial using the CalculiX shell element. In my understanding, preCICE maps the nodes by their coordinates, so I wonder how should I write the configuration files for OpenFOAM and CalculiX. Should I use the thickness-less baffle in OpenFOAM? Or should I make the interface in the mesh with thickness? And take the mid-face as the coordinates of the shell nodes? How should I set the CalculiX part? Is it the same with the ones using solid elements?
It would be great if there’s any available examples. Thank you in advance.
I am not very familiar with the CalculiX configuration, but I find this in the adapter documentation:
The adapter supports quasi 2D simulations when the z-direction is ignored. If you set the preCICE interface dimension to 2, the adapter will map data from the CalculiX 3D simulation to 2D space and vice-versa. The 3D simulation should be made of solid elements (or shells) of unit thickness.
Maybe @IshaanDesai (or actually, @boris-martin) knows a bit more about this. I find some related topics here as well, such as Perform 2D simulation with Calculix.
As far as I know, we have no tutorials for this. Contributions welcome!
I am also interested in using shell-type surfaces in OpenFOAM-CalculiX coupling. But I am confused about the terminology in your answer @Makis, as you seem to use shell and 2D synonymously. Maybe I should use “structure” instead of “solid” to avoid confusion. So, the simulation can be any combination of 2D/3D and shell/solid structures. I would like to clarify it in this drawing:
Note that the 3D solid structure has a single block of solid mesh, whereas the 3D shell structure has 5 surface shell-type meshes (red) with no block. Shell-type bodies are defined with a thickness in CalculiX, and solids are not. So far, I successfully simulated 2D with solid structure and 3D with solid structure, and as @Pablo34 asked, I wonder if the other two are possible.
I will try that and maybe contribute to the project as an example case. Meanwhile, any ideas are appreciated!
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