A beginner question
 

I need to model a cylinder as surface body and do a static structural analysis using Ansys. I can do this, but if I need to add few stiffeners, how should I do it ? To put in a better way, whats the best and correct way to do it ?

Hi Harry,



It depends on what exactly you want to model / which detail you need.



If you want to look at the effect of discreet stiffener at various positions I would go with beam elements coupled to the shell. You can then quickly modify the coupling location and use cross-section variation to change the stiffness.



Have fun ;)

Thanks for the reply.
I need to model a cylindrical tank and optimize the location and number of stiffeners.

I didn't understand your reference to beam element. Here is what I did in a nutshell:
I created a circle, extruded it as thin surface with inner and outer radii = 0. I got my cylinder as surface body there.

I drew another circle, at position where I need stiffener, made line body out of it and then applied a T cross section to it. I ran into problem there as the T was not aligned towards cylinder axis. I can include figures if that was not clear.

Are these the right ways to do it ? even if its so, I still got the cross section alignment issue.