Using several materials

[kichwa]

Hi

I'm trying to model an elastic circular slab on top of another elastic circular slab. The lower slab will be fixed at the bottom and both will be horizontally restrained on their circumferences.

I'm doing this by creating a rectangular area and choosing PLANE2 elements and specifying the "axisymmetric" option; thus rotating the rectange about the y-axis to create a disc.

Once I create one big area for both the upper and lower slabs, how do I go about meshing one portion with one type of material and the remaining portion with another (in order to model the two slabs; one on top of the other). Is this even the right strategy?

The only meshing options which I'm aware of involve meshing the whole area with one type of element with one set of properties.

Thanks in advance.

 

[doatis]

You can always just select a subset of elements and use the EMODIF command to change the material card assignment for the currently selected elements.

I would typically divide the area into two distinct regions (using boolean operations) and assign my material properties to each area. This way prevents any type of element selection oddities (i.e. you may wind up with a jagged material interface if you don't use the mapped meshing option).

Up to you as to which you want to choose, there's more than one way to do it.

Hope this helps,
Doug