A first fruition of my work!

I'm working on this complex model of half of a ring gear. I've been working on it for several weeks, probably more like months. The last two weeks I've been working on associating the mesh with the geometry which is a problem with bottom-up meshing sometimes. In short, the mesh made up of a finite number of elements is not the same as the geometry that you planned. They may look the same but when you take a closer look you will see slightly off angles in the range of .1 or .2 degrees away from parallel. There are also curves that are approximated as strait lines that you need to associate with the geometry. So you must select Mesh > Associate Mesh with Geometry..., then select the feature (face, edge, etc. ) on the geometry, then select the mesh (using "by angle" instead of "individual" works better but keep the degrees like .3 or something low) then click done and the face or other feature you selected on the mesh is now associated with the geometry.

So I just finished associating the mesh with the geometry on my 400 faces or so and Abaqus successfully wrote out the input file (which I still have to edit so that if actually runs)! The point is I am hours (perhaps days) away from a truly fantastic carburizing simulation!

Abaqus: Bottom-up mesh example

So swept meshing and structured meshing have failed or aren't available but bottom-up meshing is complicated and hard right? Not as much as you might think. Here is a sample of how I meshed a region of a part using bottom-up meshing technique. This is using Abaqus version 6.7 and I'm skipping the parts about seeding, partitioning, and element type that you have to do to make a mesh. Be sure you seed the region before you mesh it or it will not mesh.

Step 1: Select Mesh > Controls... > Hex (in this case it could be something else but hex looks the most professional) > Bottom-up. Then you select the region (partition, cell) of the part you wish to mesh with bottom-up technique.

Step 2: Click on Mesh > Create Bottom-Up Mesh... Then select the cell (region, partition) that you just gave mesh controls to. The "Create Bottom-Up Mesh" box will appear.

Step 3: Select the Source side. Click "Done" when you have selected the source side. This is the side where the mesh will be created in two dimensions, essentially the bottom of the part, so that the mesh can be swept through the volume.

Step 4: Then select at least one connecting side in this example I choose five connecting sides. The more sides you have the more structured the mesh will be. When you have selected the side(s) click "Done". In some cases you have have to specify a Target side but in general is is not necessary.

Step 5: Click "Apply" in the "Create Bottom-Up Mesh" box and you are done! So that you know the details this mesh had 2304 elements, with 0 analysis errors and 48 analysis warnings. (That means it's pretty good.)

If you have any questions just ask.

If I helped you solve your problem consider how cheap my consulting services are and help me pay the rent: