CAE - Simple meshing question

[DavidDEC]

Hello,

I have what should be a very simple question for meshing.

In order to improve the quality of a 2D mesh I'm deleting some elements and creating new ones.
The thing is that the new elements are no connected to the mesh I'm trying to edit. When I unblock the original mesh and update it, new elements are created on top of the ones created manually.

I am creating the manual elements in the same collector as the original mesh, but the create element command won't allow me to add the new elements to this mesh.

What am I missing? Thank you for any help!

 

[BlasMolero]

Dear David,
In order to improve 2-D mesh quality I suggest to simplify geometry, splitting regions to create regular contours, you have available many tools in both FEM environment or in the idealized environment to perform both face and edge operations like "split edge", "merge edge", etc.. this way mesh & geometry will be always linked & updated automatically. As soon as you "edit" one element of the mesh using commands like "Split Shell element" then the mesh is "locked". If you UNLOCK the mesh then after clicking in UPDATE will delete your modifications. In summary, work the geometry and play with mesh density, is the easy workflow in order to get 2-D quality mesh size.

Regarding the manual creation, you can create any element you like, but in the collector will appear as "manually created", not possible to add to any mesh created based in the geometry. Another option is to merge nodes, this is perfectly valid, if both mesh (manual & geometry based) is coincident then you can merge nodes and assure continuity in displacements. Do your best, but repeated, working the geometry is the more easy way, and the most productive, the option to create mesh manually mesh let us for CAE users with FEA experience. Recently I worked in a project where modifications in the design was most easy performed based in mesh instead in geometry!!.

Best regards,
Blas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blas Molero Hidalgo
Ingeniero Industrial
Director

IBERISA
48011 BILBAO (SPAIN)
WEB:

http://www.iberisa.com

Blog de FEMAP & NX Nastran:

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[DavidDEC]

Dear Blas,

thank you very much for your detailed reply. I will indeed modify my strategy and will work on a better geometry via face operations so that the mesh afterwards has an improved quality.

Regards,

David