cannot perform volume meshing only surface meshing

dendavis

I cannot achieve volume meshing of the slab in the attached .STP file. Using the meshing parameters shown in the attached screen capture, only surface meshing occurs.

disla

Bad geometry

Your higher element in the hierarchy is a shell with and not fully closed.
Cut it with the sliding bar and you will see there is no solid to mesh below the surface.

Sergio

With element size 50 I was able to get a smoth mesh. Anyway I would consider remove all the small radius of the geometry before meshing to get a simple mesh for this part. Also can be used simmetry.

disla

Result can be confusing.
I was able to mesh it, but it only generates shell elements.
The slab is "empty".

Sergio

You are right Disla, have checked and also I'm having only a 2d mesh. I would suppose that Mecway will give some alert as we are meshing a solid and get 2d mesh... so I load the model in Salome to find out that is only a surface, there is no solid at all. So, there is a problem in the geometry, for some reason is not a valid solid.

Victor

One of the corners is missing. But that is weird that it silently generates the surface mesh. I didn't know that was happening.

Sergio

Victor, is possible to have different icons for solid and surface geometry on the tree? This would solve the confusion quickly.

Victor

Not sure. I hope that there's another way to identify improper meshes like an exit code or error message or something. That'd be easier from my perspective.