Hi Itascans, I have installed a lining in the excavation of a shaft (146 ft diameter) using liner elements; however, when checking the internal forces, none are calculated because it reports that I have many invalid elements. It seems like something very simple that is failing — any ideas?
Thanks.
Because in your plot there are some elements whose normal directions are align with your set SurfX (1,0,0). The default local Z-axis is along the element normal direction so the local X-axis (SurfX) cannot be the same direction.
We have two methods to void this:
(1) Do not plot those elements with the above issue. This can be done by (a) uncheck or (b) using interactive range tool.
(2) adjust SurfX. A good practice is to to set it to the direction of tunnel axis.
Sometimes we need to combine the above two.
Thank you, Cheng, for your help. As you mentioned, It was actually a simple issue related to the post-processing and the plotting, not the model itself. Problem solved!
