ANSYS Element Type for Stress Analysis of Protection Windows

[001fj]

Hello,

I have to do stress analysis on a protection window at work but I am getting errors when meshing in ANSYS because of the element type I am choosing. The window is of course is a solid and is a wide, thin sheet. What Element Type should I use?

Also, do I need to create nodes or not? Can I just create a volume right away without creating nodes then connecting them to create an area/volume? (Sorry, I am new to this.)

Thanks a lot and I am looking forward to your replies.

 

[minger]

You may be in a little over your head. Protection window tells me that you're going to try and do some sort of impact problem. Having no knowledge of basic ANSYS commands and techniques, I'd say that this is a bad idea.

Spend a month or so going through the manual and tutorials before trying to take on a (what is more than likely an LS-DYNA problem anyways) complex problem such as this.