Improvement for next version of MecWay

sofien_73 · March 2023

Hi Victor,
I post this message for the improvements of the next version of MecWay.
Is it possible to add the diagrams (Tension, Shear, Bending and Torsion) as some of the other softwares it should be helpfull for beam analysis.
Regards.
Sofien

Victor · March 2023

Thanks for the suggestion. It's come up before but I put it at low priority.

disla · April 2023

HI Victor,

I would like to suggest that the node/Element List tool were able to sort by element, shape , component, or material.

Sometimes , some elements with different shape get mixed in between the mesh like in the picture. Ordering by shape in that list would easily allow to select them in the list and erase.

Like in the Windows Explorer, when you push the upper tag of the column it sorts the list by that criterion.

Not sure if that is difficult but would be useful.

JohnM · April 2023

I think this is BETA but this might solve your problem in the next release:

disla · April 2023

Thanks John,

That's exactly what I was looking for.

disla · April 2023

I have found something cool experimenting with ccx that could be interesting and easy to implement on a future version.
Ccx allows multiple Cyclic Symmetries in the same model. I didn't know that was possible, but it is described in the manual.
It would allow reducing the computation time of models with uneven rotational symmetries.
They can be even bonded in between them.

prop_design · April 2023

great find @disla. that's something that could really benefit @hooshsim

hooshsim · April 2023

Been using CCX with multiple cyclic symmetry for years. Wish Internal had similar option

prop_design · April 2023

@hooshsim. i didn't know that was possible. so you can model your asymmetric model with cyc sym then? sorry if i caused confusion on that. i thought the model had to be symmetric.

Sergio · May 2023

Hi Victor, would be possible to add the unity cm^4 for the beam moments definitions? Same for torsional and area, I have seen lot of standard profiles tables with cm as unity. Regards

Victor · May 2023

@Sergio cm^4 and cm^2 done for v20.

Sergio · May 2023

Thanks @Victor !

kuhl · May 2023

Hi @Victor,
Would it be possible to extend the stress linearization tool to process not only v. Mises and principal stresses but also xx, yy, zz stress components or even any stress component to be chosen by the user?
This would enable Mecway to be used for direction dependant stress linearization as required by various codes (eg FKM, IIW, ASME) for the static and fatigue analysis for welded joints.

Victor · May 2023

@kuhl, I can probably do that. Could you give me more details? For instance, is it really the components in global coordinates or transformed to the orientation of the SCL line?

kuhl · May 2023

I'll try to to dig out some Images next week to clarify the stress components that are needed.
Thanks for having a look into this!

disla · June 2023

HI Victor,

I would kindly ask if the "Hallow" tool could also be implemented to work in the same way as it actually does with solids but for shells.
The goal would be to convert the constituent element sides into beams. That way one could easily transform a structured shell into a structured framework.
One would get in a few operations the steel from its source (shell) for easy overlap and apply distributed loads (coincident nodes).

Image as example.

kuhl · June 2023

I would like that, too.

Another nice improvment for the mesh tools could be to add something like scale tool that scales solid element normal to their surface (similar to an offset in CAD software )
Our use case is sheet metal parts. At some stage we go from shell (quad) to solid by extruding the midsurface shell in both direction to get a solid Mesh with 4 Elements in thickness direction.
If we want to eg reduce wall thickness of the part we now use a work around by extruding a layer of dummy solids from the parts surface inwards and use the inside surface of the dummy as surface to project the original parts surface into (If that makes any sense). WE then deleted the dummy.
This way we can change the thickness without losing named selections in the parts surface. But we are limited because the outside solid layer would become too think/thick and for 2nd order elements the midside nodes are an issue because they are not moved with this work around.

So the above mentioned scale tool could be used to evenly reduce or increase the thickness of every solid layer in the sheet metal part. All named selections in the parts surface would stay intact so Connections / boundary conditions and auch dont need to be redone.
What do you think?

seirov · June 2023

hello, I've seen a lot of interesting feature for next version!
Could it be possible an improvement on the interface? I would like to have drag&drop loads and constraints to folder, and select more than one (by dragging with mouse or ctrl+click)
Thanks.

Sergio · June 2023

@kuhl , for sheet metal part, our procedure was model in CAD as a surface model, and we model the side of the part that is in contact with another one. So then we mesh it with 2d elements, and we can choose after in the extrusion (we also use hexas, but three elements only) the required thikness. Even for the CAD, modeling one side of the part rather than the midsurface was better as we know or have as reference the matting part normally.

kuhl · June 2023

Hi @Sergio ,
Thanks for the Insight!
Do you have a workflow for changing the thickness of the part when the shells are already expanded to solids?

Sergio · June 2023

@kuhl , normally I keep the initial 2d mesh as a backup, so then I can extrude to any thickness. All the BC must be re-applied

disla · June 2023

harryvanlangen has a script in the Python API Scripts folder called "Shape.py" that can move a set of nodes in the normal direction to the surface. ¿Maybe that script could be rearranged to be able to offset a set of selected nodes a given distance in the normal direction.?

Sergio · June 2023

Hi Victor, I just tried the beta of the version 20, and the Geometry view now looks really nice, the new colors for parts and edges, and the hided parts representation is also very good!

Some ideas:

In the Analysis settings, can be added a user text note? To store model info such as the reason of the analysis, analyst name, date...

Geometry
This is the most needed I think... import one assembly step file and separate in components!
Can you add a way to change the color of the parts (linked to the resulting mesh). Maybe in the model tree and the graphic contextual menu
On the graphic view, in the contextual menu can be added an option to hide the selected part? (Hide this, Show Only...)
Can have the Named Selections created from geometry a consecutive automatic naming?
A way to select multiple surfaces similar to the mesh Edge detection selection?
The new icon for parts are very nice, I have noted that for solid and surface parts is the same... can you add a different for surface models? The dxf files are imported un such branch of the tree also? Maybe they can have an icon also (solid, shell and line models)

Meshing Parameter Window:
Can we specify the geometry and mesh color in this window?
Could you add a simple user text to store specific model info (revision of the model CAD component, model origin, author...). Maybe this info could be retrieved later.
Then this window could be renamed to Geometry Info, with a tab for meshing and another for Geometry Info (color, model info, maybe the link to the stp file could be there also)

Material Properties
Add a user text, sometimes we need to document from where the properties had been stolen.
Can be the Young´s modulus and Poisson defined for different temperatures?

Victor · June 2023

@disla, @kuhl, I wrote a script to do the "hollow" operation on shells here:
https://mecway.com/forum/discussion/comment/7097/#Comment_7097

disla · June 2023

Thank you, Victor. First tries and I love the script.
It has so few code lines that I even feel a little bad that I am not able to write it myself.
One thing, It seems to send the new beam elements to another component. Not sure why.

Victor · June 2023

Good to hear it's useful. The component isn't well defined if you don't specify it. You can change it to get the name of the component of the original element using mw.element_component(element_id) and assign that to the new elements using the optional 3rd paramater on mw.new_element(shape, node_ids, component=None).

kuhl · June 2023

Thanks @Victor, another valuable addition!

A couple of weeks ago I promised to dig out a an illustration showcasing the stress components that I would be interested in in order to use the stressliarization tool in Mecway for weld analysis:

Or, alternatively illustrated:

The stress linearization could be used to evaluate the hot spot stress components in singularities, eg at the toe of a weld, where the stress cannot be taken directly because it does not converge. Either by linearization along the surface according to IIW (International Institute of Welding)

or by linearization through the thickness according to ASME

I hope that helps as an explanation.

Mishal · June 2023

Where can I download the Beta of version 20?

Victor · June 2023

https://mecway.com/download/mecway200_Beta3.msi

German · June 2023

It would be great if api command mw.solve() could return something to know if the solution was OK or not.

It would also be great to have commands to do some mesh operations like:

select elements by number or shape
select nodes by number
refine x2
refine x3
change element shape

etc.

This may allow to automate some processes.

Sergio · June 2023

Hi Victor could you add in the list for future improvements the meshing refinement with Netgen? Very often we cannot force some refinement on surfaces with Mecway/Netgen, that can be done on Salome/Netgen easily. Check out this example, in the small radius I have adjusted a surface mesh refinement of 0.3 mm, and Mecway cannot achieve it, while with the same (I guess) parameters in Salome I get a much better mesh.

Best regards

Mecway

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Improvement for next version of MecWay

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