Structural (Area meshing )

[jafarshah15]

I have assign area elements (Walls as shell element ) to frames and meshed it very finely . which makes my model too much loaded as its congested grid so it got too much loaded. Now i want to mesh it coarsely ( say i did it 20 by 20 element and now i want it do as 5 by 5 elements ).Kindly Tell me how i do it ? i have one option as to delete it all and assign new one but it is very tidous. please kindly do your good response .

 

[cyrosmith85]

Hi,

You don't necessarily have to re-do the grid, just select the area or areas that you want to re-mesh and go to assign→shell→wall auto mesh options→ click the button with "Advanced - Modify/Show Auto Rectangular Mesh Settings.." on it → then select the size of the meshing as you want.

 

[jafarshah15]

@cyrosmith 85 Dear . Thanks for your reply. but you can do re-mesh but it can not be enlarged, it get divieded into further small elements. what i need is , say i have meshed (1 element = 10 feet length by 10 feet wall )shell element into 5 elements so i get 2 by 2 feet elements.now i want to re-join (theses 5 elements of 2 by 2 feet into 1 element i-e back to 1 element of 10 by 10 feet ).. guide me for that

 

[cyrosmith85]

Hi,

I hope this helps on time.

There is a difference between meshing and dividing shell elements, although by dividing into smaller elements you are "manually meshing". You can call dividing an "external mesh", and just meshing an "internal mesh". To guide you I need to know which is it that you applied to your model.

NOTE: By "dividing" I mean that individual elements are actually visible and you can tell one from another. By "meshing" I mean that you can not see the divisory line between each element of the mesh unless you activate the shell analysis mesh option in ETABS.