How to mesh this structure? 2

[magadavixt]

I have been trying to mesh this structure for the past 2 days but every time, it shows that the volume of xx elements (usually less than 100) is zero, small, or negative.
This is a single part that I copy 4 instances of. See pictures below. If more information is needed or the part file, please let me know. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[DrBwts]

Yeah its hard to tell without seeing the model file

 

[magadavixt]

DrBwts,

Attached is the file. If you look at the job titled "jodd" and look at the element set "errelements..." (something like that) then you can see that ive reduced the number of bad elements to just two and where it occurs. I am not sure whether this is a mesh or constraint problem.

 

[DrBwts]

Sorry I cant open that as I'm running 6.14 but it sounds like a mesh problem.

Are you using shell elements? If so then my guess is you need Hourglass control.

 

[rstupplebeen]

On first inspection why are you not using shells? Aside from that here are the steps that I used to create the mesh below and attached.

1. Converted to independent parts in the assembly. To make it easier to change them all at once
2. For the face panels I used a local seed of 3 elements through the thickness
3. Global mesh seed of 0.005
4. The circular disk I made a swept instead of structured mesh
5. For the honeycomb you will need to reduce the mesh seed significantly and create a bunch of partitions to avoid skewed elements. Right now it's over 1 million elements and it still needs more for aspect ratios.
6. I deleted the mesh and compressed the database to reduce the file size from 46 to 1Mb

I hope this helps.
Rob

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