Modeling Sandwich Composites in Workbench: Non-Penalty Based Contact?

[BlkHwkEng]

When I model a honeycomb type composite in workbench I tired modeling the core material as an orthogonal material type using solid tet elements and the aluminum face sheets as isotropic shell elements. I base the core material properties off of the honeycomb manufactures data for stiffness. using this approach I am able to get fairly accurate stress results when compared to hand calculations of the same simple problems (i.e. simple beam with distributed loading) but my deflections are completely wrong. I was hoping someone could give me insight on how to go about modeling sandwich composites in workbench...hopefully without paying another 50k for some type of composites modeler. Also I am getting a little better at APDL so if anyone wants to give advice based upon it I would be all ears.

Also I get tons of penetration between the face sheet and core material, should I use a non-penalty based contact or will this mess things up even more.

I hope this post makes sense...it is very late here and I am about to fall asleep on my keyboard.

 

[minger]

Rather than using contact elements, perhaps you could try coupling them (CP)?

 

[BlkHwkEng]

Way better results doing in like that. Thanks again minger