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Topic: Interface 3D and construction process incompatibility

Hello,
I’ve been having a hard time with interfaces in ATENA 2025 Engineering.
In the model I assigned two Interface 3Ds between solids, and the analysis runs. However when I try to inactivate one of these through the ‘ Construction process’ option in the ‘Task’ input window, I get the following error:
‘Writing construction process "interface_mono" ended with an error due to unknown GROUP ID.’
(The other interface presist throught every construction stage so I did not include that in the tables, and I do not get the error message regading that)
I have checked the INP file and it suggests that there is actually two group ids assigned:

ELEMENT TYPE ID 131 NAME "Interface 3D wedge" TYPE "CCIsoGap<xxxxxx>"  LINEAR
ELEMENT TYPE ID 132 NAME "Interface 3D quad"  TYPE "CCIsoGap<xxxxxxxx>"  LINEAR

ELEMENT GROUP ID 120001 NAME "interface_mono 3D wedge" TYPE 121 MATERIAL 85 GEOMETRY 12000 ;
ELEMENT GROUP ID 120002 NAME "interface_mono 3D quad" TYPE 122 MATERIAL 85 GEOMETRY 12000 ;

In case of other elements it looks the following:

ELEMENT TYPE ID 71 NAME "BE #7 Tetra Plate"  TYPE "CCIsoTetra<xxxx>"      LINEAR ;
ELEMENT TYPE ID 72 NAME "BE #7 Pyram. Plate" TYPE "CCIsoBrick<xxxxxxxx>"  LINEAR ;
ELEMENT TYPE ID 73 NAME "BE #7 Wedge Plate"  TYPE "CCIsoWedge<xxxxxx>"    LINEAR ;
ELEMENT TYPE ID 74 NAME "BE #7 Hexa Plate"   TYPE "CCIsoBrick<xxxxxxxx>"  LINEAR ;

ELEMENT GROUP ID 70001 NAME "Plate" TYPE 71 MATERIAL 75 GEOMETRY 7000 ;
ELEMENT GROUP ID 70002 NAME "Plate" TYPE 72 MATERIAL 75 GEOMETRY 7000 ;
ELEMENT GROUP ID 70003 NAME "Plate" TYPE 73 MATERIAL 75 GEOMETRY 7000 ;
ELEMENT GROUP ID 70004 NAME "Plate" TYPE 74 MATERIAL 75 GEOMETRY 7000 ;

It would be important to remove it in certain intervals because if I exclude it from the construction process table the analysis crashes(it basically floats between the assigned solids), but I cannot start the analysis by deactivating it due to the INP error.
I was wondering if there is a way to either cut down to one group ID or are there any alternative solutions to this type of error, maybe I skipped a crucial step when assigning the interface or creating the mesh, since it might be a mesh incompatibility problem.
I have also tried to run the ‘interface3D with shear’ tutorial (available under the ‘Tutorials’ in ATENA center) by inactivating the interface in interval one, but I get the same error message.
It is also worth mentioning that the analysis runs when I delete the interface from the model and it behaves as expected under loads and according to the set construction process.

Thank you in advance for your advice

Re: Interface 3D and construction process incompatibility

Hello, you have to group ID because each group has different element type. One group ID would be created when just one element type is used for meshing. However I do not think that will help you with the problem.
Can you send us the model on cervenka@cervenka.cz email so we can have a look at it and help you?