I have a weldment that I'm working on analyzing.  It is primarily angles and plate.  There are several areas where the plates overlap the legs of the angles.  I then created midplane shell elements and suppressed all the solids.  What is the best way to connect the plates to the shells where they overlap since there is now a gap between the parallel shell elements?  I've tried doing split lines on the both the plate and the angle and then creating a bonded contacted between the edges that would be where the welds would be.  The bonded contacts seem to be inconsistent.  Some shells will stay bonded, others just fly apart even though I've applied a bonded contact to the edges.