Solidworks to Femap, how to create mid-plane

[sych]

Dear all. I'm hoping some of you could help solving the following issue:

I have a Solidworks assembly model. I transfer the solidworks model to Femap and the model is showing the actual thickness. Lets say I have to mesh the model using CQUAD, I must find the midplane of every individual surface before meshing. Does anyone know how to do this at once (by assuming there are many panels in the model that creating mid-plane of each panel will take some times) ? The fastest way to find the midplane either from Solidworks or Femap would help, thank you.

Seb

 

[GBor]

There are some meshers that will do a mid-plane mesh, but there are some issues, particularly in the corners. I have, on occasion, moved the plates of the CAD model so that one surface is actually located at the mid-plane, then surface mesh the entire model and delete those surfaces that do not represent the mid-plane.

 

[ThomasH]

As you probably know in Femap there is a midsurface command. I think you should be able to work with "fillet" and "trim" on surfaces but like GBor said. There are issues.

I don't think you can get a "good" mesh without some manual "fixing". At least not for anything but a very simple geometry.

Anyway, Good Luck

Thomas

 

[ProbaSci]

I don't do midsurfacing so maybe this is silly, but can you explode the solid into surfaces, or export from solidworks as an iges with surface only and mesh those?

http://www.probasci.com

-
Implantable FEA for medical device manufacturers

 

[cbrn]

Hi,
ProbaSci, the method you suggest can work, but at the condition that the FEM has the capability to explicitly set if the surface is the internal, external, or mid-plane, of the shell. I seem to remember that CosmosWorks can't handle that (for him, the shell has always its mid-plane on the surface); Ansys has been doing this since when it was born; I know nothing about Femap.

However, when a shell analysis is planned, generally the preferred method is to have a dedicated surface-only model.

Regards

 

[sych]

Gbor: Tha's what I was doing by importing the solidworks
model as IGES file and create midplane of each
surface in FEMAP and delete the inner and outer
surfaces then mesh.

ThomasH: I agree.

ProbaSci: Yes, but you have to create midplane for each
surface, it'll be the same process as mentioned
above I also tried to create midplane in
Solidworks, then export it to FEMAp for meshing.
Somehow, it also takes time. My curiocity was to
find out if there's a shortcut.

cbrn: Thanks.

Thanks everyone.