Membrane Elements

This is actually a common procedure.  The "plate" coating is most accurately accomplished using very thin membrane elements (not shell elements).  There is a clear rationale for this:
1) In "blocky" structures the peak stresses will be on the free surface (barring any defects--which of course FEA can't account for). 
2) On the free surface the stress tensor devolves to two normal components and one shear (which the membrane element captures nicely). 

Actually, when using membrane elements this is a somewhat standard technique when the surface stresses will be used for a subsequent fatigue study. The fatigue analysis is only concerned with the stresses at the surface of the component, so it is convenient (and computationally efficient) to use only the stresses from the membrane elements. The membrane elements used are very thin and the stress results do not differ greatly when compared to the same model run without the surface membrane element (solid elements only).