Surface Coating

Applies a surface coating (shell layer) of a specified material and thickness over one or more faces of your model. This feature is beneficial when you want to include the ability to accurately evaluate surface stresses or to overlay your structure with thin parts, such as modeling Thermal Barrier Coatings or sheet metal over support structures. To accurately model this type of application, Mechanical enables you to specify the thickness, stiffness behavior, coordinate system, and material.

Important: During a Cyclic Symmetry analysis, the application does not expand Surface Coating results.

Additional Related Information

Object Properties

The Details Pane properties for this object include the following.

Category	Properties/Options/Descriptions
Scope	Scoping Method: Specify this property as either Geometry Selection or Named Selection. Geometry: Visible when the Scoping Method is set to Geometry Selection. Use the Face selection filters to pick your geometry, click in the Geometry field, then click Apply. Named Selection: Visible when the Scoping Method is set to Named Selection. This field provides a drop-down list of available face-based (only) user–defined Named Selections.
Definition	Stiffness Behavior: Options include the following. Stress Evaluation Only (default): Use this option to evaluate stresses and strains on the exterior surface(s). Elements do not provide any stiffness contribution to the model. This option does not require a Thickness entry. Membrane Only: Elements have membrane stiffness only. Membrane and Bending: Elements have membrane and bending stiffness. Note: By default, Mechanical automatically sets the Shell Offset to Bottom for all Stiffness Behavior settings. Thickness: Define the thickness of the Surface Coating. This property can be designated as a parameter. Material: Using the fly-out menu of this property you can select an existing material, create a new material definition, or import a new material. Creating and/or importing materials automatically open the Engineering Data Workspace, enabling you to make your material selections/specifications. Once you have completed either of these operations, you must refresh the Model cell in the Project Schematic to bring new data into the Mechanical application. Coordinate System Suppressed

Tree Dependencies

Valid Parent Tree Object: Geometry.
Valid Child Tree Objects: Comment, Figure, and Image.

Insertion Methods

Use any of the following methods after highlighting the Geometry object or the Body object:

Click Surface Coating option on the Geometry Context Tab.
Right-click the Geometry object or in the Geometry window and select Insert > Surface Coating.
Select the desired face geometry from the parts available beneath the geometry object, right-click, and select Insert > Surface Coating. This option automatically specifies the geometry.

Right-click Options

In addition to common right-click options, relevant right-click options for this object include:

Insert >
- Element Orientation
- Point Mass
- Distributed Mass
- Surface Coating
- Thickness (available based on analysis specifications)
- Layered Section (available based on analysis specifications)
Suppress/Unsuppress

API Reference

See the Surface Coating section of the ACT API Reference Guide for specific scripting information.