Challenge

Week 12:Project 2-Meshing of Rear Wheel Holder challenge

OBJECTIVE:

To mesh the given floor panel geometry through after generating its midsurface. To also ensure that mesh is of the highest quality (following given quality criteria) with a low number of trias and good mesh flow.

Target Element Length = 5 Units

PROCEDURE:

First thing to do is to make sense of all the collectors, which this component has several of. We can combine all the collectors into one by moving all of them to the first collector and then deleting the empty ones.
This will help prevent any prospective confusion. This is done using the 'organize' tool (Tool > Organize). We need to select the surface that needs to be moved and the destination surface and we can go ahead and click move.

Since the entire component has almost the same thickness, we can go ahead and generate the midsurface manually from the bottom. This is due to the complexity of the geometry in certain regions.
For this, we will need to measure its thickness. Which is 0.75 mm. We need this for the manual creation of the midsurface. And this is done using the offset tool under surface edit.

The offset tool requires a measurement half of the thickness. Which would be 0.375 mm in this case.
The offset tool can be accessed through Geometry > Surface Edit > Offset.
We can select any one face from any one of the faces. And then, right-click surfaces and select 'by face'. When this is done, the entire face is selected.

As can be seen in the above screenshot, there is some cleanup that is required (free edges have appeared and are marked in red).
We can make use of the toggle tool to stitch up gaps between surfaces. That will be the reason for most of the free edges seen here.
Toggle option can be accessed through Geometry > Quick Edit > Toggle Edge. One of the free edges is then clicked to stitch the gap.

After cleaning up the midsurface and before meshing, firstly, the quality parameters are entered in the criteria file settings (Preferences (Toolbar) > Criteria File Settings)

As is customary with meshing, we should start meshing from a certain region and work our way from that region (preferably one with more free edges).
To help with this, we can make use of cut lines (quick edit > split surface node) to split the surface into smaller surfaces for better mesh control.
The automesh tool can be accessed from the 2D set of options. The target element length being 5 mm.

After the mesh is created, we can clean the mesh using various tools. Primarily, we will be using the element optimize tool, the drag tria tool and to an extent, the swap edge tool.
These are accessed from the quality index section in the 2D menu. Also, after dragging trias, smoothing will be required. It can be accessed through 2D > Smooth
To save time and since some regions of the component are symmetrical, we can make use of the reflect tool to create the other symmetrical half (Tools > Reflect). We will need to select the elements to reflect first.
Do take care not to select regions that are not otherwise part of the other half, since both halves may not be completely symmetrical. And then we can select the axis on which we are reflecting and then the base point.
After that, we need to right-click 'elements' in the reflect toolbar and select duplicate. And then we can click reflect. This will create the mirrored half of the current component.

Finally, we can assign a thickness for each of our midsurface, which is 0.75 mm. We can do this by right-clicking and creating a component in the component tree.
After a property is created (and named 'Thickness'), we can go to its section in the bottom left and scroll down to assign the aforementioned thickness
Then we can assign the thickness by selecting the midsurface, going to its properties box on the bottom left and assigning a property, by selecting the thickness property.

The material is also created in a similar manner, by right-clicking the collector menu and selecting 'create' and then 'material'.

We can go ahead and name it steel and assign the property to the midsurface in the entity editor section in the bottom left (as shown in the following screenshot). The property will need to be selected for it to be assigned

Final Result Image:

RESULTS

Therefore, the given floor panel was meshed after its midsurface was extracted. Meshing was carried out as per required quality criteria and it was ensured that the mesh flow was as smooth as possible. There were failed elements due to having to ensure proper surface capture.
Thickness and material were also assigned to the midsurface.

Ship work like this
in your own course.