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support@mecway.com
Mecway
FEA
mesh failure
Hi All,
I am playing with the last version of Mecway and I bought a LISA licence few years ago. Both software gave me many problems on meshing, in particular when geometry is a mix of shells and solids "in contact" or some assembly of different parts.
I attached a typical example of an imported model that I failed to mesh. This is an assembly of shell and solid parts.
In this case geometry is quite simple (and it fails to mesh) and it can be reproduced in Mecway but often parts received from clients are more complex and the "reproduction" is almost impossible.
Is there a way to solve this problem? Is there a way to import a mesh from some other software (like Netgen or Gmesh)?
Unfortunately if the part cannot be meshed properly, Mecway becomes not useful. Or probably am I asking too much from the software?
Mario
I am playing with the last version of Mecway and I bought a LISA licence few years ago. Both software gave me many problems on meshing, in particular when geometry is a mix of shells and solids "in contact" or some assembly of different parts.
I attached a typical example of an imported model that I failed to mesh. This is an assembly of shell and solid parts.
In this case geometry is quite simple (and it fails to mesh) and it can be reproduced in Mecway but often parts received from clients are more complex and the "reproduction" is almost impossible.
Is there a way to solve this problem? Is there a way to import a mesh from some other software (like Netgen or Gmesh)?
Unfortunately if the part cannot be meshed properly, Mecway becomes not useful. Or probably am I asking too much from the software?
Mario
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Comments
Indeed, meshing is a bit of a handicap with Mecway and I regret that it's causing you frustration. It can only do a single solid part in each STEP file. So no assemblies unless each part has its own file and no shells.
Version 3 goes some way to helping with this by having bonded contact to connect incompatible meshes from each part of an assembly. You have to split it up into separate STEP files, so it's only practical for a few parts.
Yes, you can import meshes from Netgen (.vol format) or Gmesh (.msh format).
I made a video on your assembly using three of the parts just an example showing the meshing and bonded contact in Mecway. Displaying the featured edges is one of my favorites in version 3 because displaying the element edges may be too much to view sometime and turning the element edges off makes it hard to see what is what as in previous versions. Mecway is getting better for each release, and it's an affordable option for learning more advanced FEA.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o8h95c9xuvzirbe/Test Meshing and Bonded Contact in Mecway.mp4?dl=0
Thanks very much for the time you spent to answer to my post.
So, the way to solve it consists on importing the three parts separately and mesh those once at time. Interesting, I didn't think about it.
Defeaturing models is also a valid option for simple structures or assemblies, less for more complex.
In the meantime I have checked how to export mesh from Gmesh and import in Mecway.
So useful answers and also advices. Thanks to all.
Mario
PS. Bonding contact works only on surfaces or also on edges (lines)??
Thanks for the video, that is great, there is a lot of usefull information in it.
Workflow for propeller blades imported from Prop_design. Anthony has done a lot of work to find an easy procedure with good accuracy.
http://code.fosshub.com/PROP_DESIGN/downloads
Importing a CAD part and resolving bad elements in the mesh
A short video of a simple CAD part. This was version 1 of Mecway
http://mecway.com/download/platewithhole.mp4
Just wanted to say that my screencasts have been updated and are located at;
http://propdesign.jimdo.com/download/
I closed the codeFossHub page.