Week 3 - 2D meshing for sheet metal

Procedure

The hood model was imported into ANSA. The hood model consists of five 3D model namely outer panel, inner panel, latch and hinge

Once the model is imported the model, there might be error this is mainly due to the conversion of format and it is necessary to clear all these error before getting in to mesh. To clean up geometry first ensure that all faces are connected correctly by face- topo tool and next geometry is checked by the check-geometry tool. The error arise were fixed by error- fix options. Next the faces are oriented by using face=orient tool. Next extract the surface using mid surface tool and keep them separately with PID.

As the outer panel and inner panel are symmetrical in nature only half mid surface is extracted. On other hand, both the hinges are mirror image so one hinge was extracted and latch was extracted using mid surface tool.

Next the mesh parameter are configured using mesh parameters and quality criteria command as shown in Figure

Initially for meshing the perimeters and macros was alerted to 5 and checked for minimum element length and altered where the element failed. The unwanted cons are removed from the surface using join, cut and project cut tool this help to produce the better-quality mesh and slide tool is used to shift the cons ensuring that opposite features are parallel to each other.

Next the meshing process is carried out using best meshing tool which provide the best algorithm for meshing. After that the created mesh is refined using

Mesh-reconstruct

Grid-paste

Elements- swap

Elements-join

Element- split

After modifying the mesh, shell mesh – smooth is used for smoothening the flow of mesh. The element failing for quality criteria can be fixed using the remeshing or smoothing the elements. After creating the mesh using the utilities – transform- copy command is used for mirror the object. After that the mirror object was thicken using the draw shell as solid command in parameter. The meshed figure are shown below.

Conclusions

Geometry clean up, mid surface extraction and 2D meshing of the given hood model were made using ANSA tool. All produced element pass quality criteria. All the produced feature have good quality mesh. Tria element was considerably reduced.