Where did the solid geometry go?

NoahKatz

Brand new user here.

I'm trying to do modal analysis on a simple model.

I saw a youtube tutorial where a fixed restraint was applied to a face of the solid model, but when I generated the mesh the solid model geometry disappeared.

It looks like I can apply the restraints to the element faces but that would be very tedious compared to selecting one face. How do I make the geometry reappear?

OK, looks like I have to apply restraints before generating mesh, and pre-select the face, both of which seem odd.

And the geometry still disappears after meshing; is there a way to turn it back on?

I started a modal analysis, nothing happened after a couple of minutes; it's only ~600 elements so I expected it to solve by then.

Under Solution, what does Components refer to?

NoahKatz

I don't see how to edit my post; it wouldn't solve because there were more than 1000 nodes, but the error window was behind all of my other windows; is it like that for other people?

Victor

Hello NoahKatz

It should show the STEP file if you click its name in the outline tree or the "Geometry" branch.

You can apply constraints to the geometry either before or after meshing. Right click on a surface in the geometry view and pick Loads & Constraints -> ...

Thanks for pointing out that the error window was hidden behind. I'll try to fix that in future versions.

Components in the solution branch are a copy of the components in the model that was solved. You can use it to hide parts of the mesh by component.

NoahKatz

Hi Victor,

That was easy, thanks.

I'll look through the documentation, but some initial questions:

1) Does Mecway work with Windows 11?

2) While googling I saw somewhere that there was a hobbyist license for $100 (I'm a retired mechanical engineer and this is just for use on personal projects); is this still available?

3) "One license is perpetual and allows one concurrent user to use any version of Mecway on one computer."

I have two computers; does this mean that I can use it on only one, or just that I can only have Mecway running on one at a time?

4) There isn't very much mention of Mecway online, which I find surprising given what seems like its high value for the price.

Maybe it's because there aren't a lot of people interested in manual model construction, but regardless my concern is its continuing survival and user support.

May I ask then, is it a one-man show; if you retire or lose interest, is that the end of it, or do you have a succession plan?

5) Back to the s/w, from various forum posts it appears that constructing models with shells is a bit cumbersome.

Do you have any plans to implement shell meshing of selected surfaces, as opposed to a selected solid body's multiple surfaces?

Thanks

Noah

Victor

Answers:

1) Yes from some customer reports.

2) The non-commercial license is no longer available.

3) You can install and activate it on both but just use one at a time.

4) No succession plan.

5) Yes I intend to allow you to select a subset of surfaces to generate a shell mesh with but can't promise when.

NoahKatz

1) Yes, seems to work; I just downloaded it to my new computer and successfully set up and ran a modal analysis

2) No problem, still a bargain

3) Great

4) May I ask about how long you anticipate supporting it? Or is that not even a sensible question, as the user community can do that?

5) OK; similarly, is it now or in the future possible to select an edge to mesh with beam elements?

Thanks

Victor

4) No end in sight, so hopefully a few more decades or it becomes obsolete such as if cloud computing properly takes over or people stop using Windows. Mecway's existed for about 10 years so far and before that, it was LISA which was first released in the 1990's.

5) Not yet but selecting edges is on my list for the future so hopefully that would enable automatic beam meshing along edges.

NoahKatz

4) OK, I don't expect I'll last much longer than that

5) Good to know that it's on your list

Thanks, Victor

disla

Hi NoahKatz,

I would say that both , adding beams to an edge and meshing only one face could be solved once the mesh is generated by adding them manually or removing the unnecessary faces, respectively.
If you have a typical step file you normally work with we can take a look.

disla

I have never use it, but you can mesh just the edge nodes with gmsh.
Also you could mesh everything and select only what you need later.