3-D meshing of three unique components using three distinct meshing methods to satisfy the prescribed quality conditions.
Objective:
To 3D mesh the three components using three 3D meshing methods such that the required quality criteria is satisfied.
Procedure:
Housing Model
1. Import the geometry using the Import command and delete the solids present in the component.
2. Perform a geometry cleanup for the component using the quick edit panel (f11)
3. Remove the small fillets that are present in the geometry by using the defeature command (geometry -> defeature)
4. Check for regions where the mesh can fail with a minumum distance of 2mm. (use f4 for measuring distance between two points)
5. Press f12 and automesh the surfaces using trias of target size 5mm, Max size 7mm and min size 2mm.
6. Right trias help achieve better feature capturing in some cases.
7. Go to tools -> Check elements to check the elements that are failing.
8. These elements can be fixed by three ways:
- Remeshing the region with bigger or smaller trias according to the type of failure
- Doing an element cleanup in the 2D menu.
- Manual cleaup using distance and translate command.
9. After the elements clear quality, go to 3D -> Tetramesh. Choose elements under the drop down menu and select all the elements that need to be converted into 3D elements.
10. The 2D surface mesh is now converted into a 3D mesh.
11. Check the mesh for tet collapse value using Check elem option in tools.
12. Fix this by Tetra remesh or manual fixing using the translate command.
Direct 3D mesh of a component
1. For the second component, a direct 3D mesh was performed.
2. Open the Utility window.
3. Click on Quick tetramesh.
4. Set the parameters and select the components and the surfaces that needs to be meshed. (Trias only, elem size)
5. Mesh the component.
6. Check for tet collapse quality.
7. Follow the same procedure mentioned for the previous model to fix tet collapse elements.
8. Ensure that the tet collapse value is above 0.15 for all the elements.
3D meshing of an Assembly
1. Check the geometry of the components.
2. It can be seen that 8 components are present in total. All components have a symmetrical component present.
3. It can be seen that two components need to be translated because there is a slight interference in the assembly.
4. This is done using the translate command in Tools.
5. After this, the Organize command in Tools can be used to separate the the merged components as individual components.
6. The geometry of the components are cleaned up using quick edit and the Mesh is created using the previously mentioned methods or using the Volume tetramesh option available in 3D -> tetramesh.
7. After the mesh is generated on four of the components, the elements are reflected along the y axis to create the mesh on the remaining components on the other side.
8. The element quality check is done to check the tet collapse values and the necessary cleanup is done as mentioned previously.
Result:
The given components were meshed using three different 3D meshing methods and the mesh was checked for quality and the elements that failed were fixed.