Automobile IP Mid surfacing and Mesh generation using ANSA

1. Aim: Understanding the structure of Automobile IP, doing geometry check, taking out the mid and performing meshing operation.

2. Objectives:

- Performing the geometry check and removing the errors. 

- Extracting the mid surface and assigning the property to them.

- Performing meshing operation and avoiding a number of elements. 

3. Body of content:

3.1-Geometry clean:

- After opening the CAD into ANSA, it is necessary to do the geometry check. As surfaces are not properly stitched and necessary faces and cons are there which are to be removed.

- Removing these unnecessary cons, faces is the basic step for any mesh formation and this ensures in the reduced number of errors in the mesh part.

3.2 Mid surface generation:

- Generating the mid surface is the second step for mesh formation.

- Mid surfaces are generally used for the components which are having a thickness of less than 5mm. Here a 3D model is converted into a 2D one and property is assigned to each entity as per requirement.

- Property has to be assigned to each entity depending upon the thickness. Same thickness components can be assigned together.

3.2.5 Property assignment.

3.3 Mesh Generation:

- Mesh generation is the most important step of any CAE process.

- Mesh is nothing but the formation of a net on the entire surface.

- Mesh can be done on 2D as well as the 3D surface. The 2D mesh is called shell mesh whereas 3D mesh is called volume mesh.

- While meshing it is necessary to set the perimeter and macro length as per the requirement and mesh parameters are to be set.

- These mesh parameters are provided by the instructor and have been taken likewise. 

- Mesh generation is a complex process, where there will be a number of errors like errors in Min and Max length, Jacobian, Skewness, aspect ration, tria per node, tria percent.

- These errors are to be removed. If not all the errors, then what are the essential errors mentioned by the instructors are to be removed

4. Learning outcome:

- Geometry clean and types of errors in geometry.

- Taking the mid surface and assigning the property with thickness.

- Mesh generation and removing errors.

5. Conclusion:

- The mid surface of a complex area is a tricky work to perform.

- Exact extraction of mid by auto process is not possible due to the complexity of the part.

- Manual mid surfacing and mesh is a time-consuming process but the outcome is much better than Auto mesh and mid-generation.

Link of model: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wHYaed8T08tYKiKLAGHiqM6rrBrbwi0N/view?usp=sharing