M. To ignore plate stiffness

To ignore the stiffness of a selection of plates, use the following procedure.

A plate element whose stiffness is ignored by the program acts will distribute any element loads but the stiffness of the plate does not contribute to the stiffness of the structure. In this way, plate elements can be used to model non-structural components, such as glass cladding.

Tip: You can also assign this plate specification from the Plate Specs dialog, which opens when you click Plate on the Specifications - Whole Structure dialog.

Select the plates which will have their stiffness ignored by the program.
On the Specification ribbon tab, select the Plate > Ignore Stiffness tool in the Specifications group.

The Plate Specs dialog opens to the Ignore Stiffness tab.
Note: There are no parameters to provide for this plate specification.

Either:

To…	Do the following…
add the specification to the model and assign to the current plate selection	click Assign.
add the specification to the model for later assignment	click Add.

The dialog closes.