Seismosoft | Earthquake Engineering Solutions

Dear all,

I am planning to use the shell4n element to model flexible floors in a masonry building in SeismoStruct 2023. My question is can this element have a trapezoid or parallelogram shape or must it be always a rectangle? The information in the help system is not clear about this.

Best regards,
Paulo

Dear pcandeias,

According to SeismoStruct's Help System: Four nodes need to be defined for this element type. These correspond to the corners of the shell element, must be entered in anti-clockwise sequence starting from the lower-left-hand corner, and must all belong to the same plane.

Hence, you may assign the shape you want to if it can be defined by four nodes that belong to the same plane.