WEB STRUCTURES

Web Technical Note 2

July 2008
Revision: 0

Meshing and Finite element analysis

Part 1 of this note considers the effect of different mesh specifications using ETABS shell elements while
in Part 2 SAP2000 shell elements are considered.
The model studied is a cantilever of span-to-depth ratio 5 (chosen to ensure bending action
predominates rather than shear) loaded by a point load at the end. The material is concrete and the
width of the beam is 0.2 m and in specified as a shell to capture in-plane stresses.

t
M

25 kN

1m

5m
Various mesh sizes, shown as A, B, C, D below were analyzed and compared to the results obtained
using hand calculations using simple bending theory (shown as ETB in the table below).

No mesh

Coarse mesh 1
(aspect ratio 20) =
1x4 elements
1.67 m
Coarse mesh 2
(aspect ratio 1.67) =
3x1 elements

0.25 m
D

Fine mesh
(aspect ratio 1) =
20x4 elements

Web Technical Note 2 (contd)

July 2008
Revision: 0

WEB STRUCTURES

Results: ETABS shell elements:

Moment,
M
(kNm)
Shear, V (kN)
Horizontal
Stress
t
(N/mm2)
Deflection at
tip (mm)

ETB
125.0

A
125.0

B
125.0

C
125.0

D
125.0

25.0
3.8

25.0
1.95

25.0
1.94

25.0
3.24

25.0
3.8

2.5

1.9

1.93

2.49

2.5

Notice that in all cases a stiffer response (i.e., smaller deflections) is obtained as mesh size approaches
D, i.e., if the mesh is too big you will underestimate deflections. Note also the estimate for tip deflection
is better than that for stresses. Clearly a fine mesh of aspect ratio 1 (i.e., D) is best, but applied to the
shear walls of a large building would mean the model would probably take a long time to run. Meshing
scheme C is probably a good compromise as we are usually interested in deflections (out by <1%) and
not much interested in stresses (out by 15%). Reinforcement quantities are unaffected by these
differences in mesh as they only depend on the values of stress resultants (M and V).

Thus it seems the following guideline should use the for ETABS shell elements:
Choose the mesh so that the aspect ratio is controlled (ideally it should be 1). The absolute size of the
element is not so crucial.
For building modeling using ETABS two cases can be identified:
1. Wall much longer than storey height;
2. Wall much shorter than storey height.

Case 1:

Wall

Storey n+1

Storey n

Mesh lines

Web Technical Note 2 (contd)

July 2008
Revision: 0

WEB STRUCTURES
Wall

Case 2:

Storey n+1
Mesh lines
Storey n

This exercise was repeated using SAP2000 and the following results were obtained:

Moment,
M
(kNm)
Shear, V (kN)
Horizontal
Stress
t
(N/mm2)
Deflection at
tip (mm)

ETB
125.0

A
108.8

B
133.1

C
113.9

D
125.0

25.0
3.8

25.0
1.95

25.0
3.25

25.0
3.24

25.0
6.52

2.5

1.94

3.2

2.49

2.87

Notice that the estimate of the bending moment is not accurate unless D is used. In addition the tip
deflection is shown as larger than ETB in D. Perhaps this is caused by the high stresses at the support (a
singularity-point of infinite stress).
So it seems that in SAP2000 it is important to control the mesh size and the aspect ratio. As a general
rule no less than 4 elements across the width should be chosen to adequately represent bending.