Ak. Soh et al., ON THE COMPATIBILITY CONDITIONS FOR MODELING TUBULAR JOINTS USING DIFFERENT TYPES OF ELEMENTS, Computers & structures, 62(5), 1997, pp. 935-942
It has been a common practice to model an offshore tubular joint using
three-dimensional brick elements for the brace/chord intersection reg
ion, including the weldment, and shell elements for the rest of the jo
int, instead of using only three-dimensional brick elements. This is t
o ensure that the model size is manageable for performing parametric s
tudies. However, it is an extremely tedious procedure to implement the
necessary and sufficient compatibility conditions at all nodes lying
on the interface between brick and shell elements. An investigation ha
s been carried out to examine the effects of partial relaxation of com
patibility conditions on the location and magnitude of hot spot stress
es at the brace/chord intersection. Results obtained have shown that,
as long as the compatibility conditions at the shell loof nodes were i
mplemented, the hot spot stresses obtained would be reasonably accurat
e. It was also found that using three or more rows of brick elements a
fter the weld toe will ensure better accuracy of results. Copyright (C
) 1996 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.