pie (rigid spider)

Restriction: Available in Nastran and OptiStruct.

This realization prepares a circled shell mesh from a certain number of segments for each link, so the mesh is adjusted to a rigid element created with the independent node centered in the circular arranged dependent nodes. The independent nodes themselves are connected by an additional rigid element.

Different numbers of elements lead to a different pattern. In addition, the appearance can be influenced via the diameter and the washer layer activation.


Figure 1.