I am new to Cubit and am hoping someone could suggest a workflow. I have .stl files of 3 parts (a growth plate sandwiched between 2 bones) that have complex geometry where the surface interfaces are matched (like an imprint). I would like to create volume geometries with the .stl files, mesh the volume geometries such that they are a single merged part, but partitioned such that I can assign material properties to each section independently, then export the meshed part to Abaqus where I can assign loads to each section independently. I would be grateful for any suggestions. Here is my current workflow up to this pointâŚ
import .stl files
Setup FEA Model under ITEM tab
Tetrahedral elements slider set to the middle
Magic mesh button
I donât know if this creates a meshed volume geometry that I am looking to create, but when I clip it, it shows elements through the geometry (Cubit>draw tet all)
Your workflow looks pretty good. If you want the three volumes to be joined via a conforming mesh, youâll want to merge the imprinted surfaces, as you mention. After merging you can still have three separate regions (for material assignment) via block assignment. Hereâs some pseudocode that expands a bit on your workflow:
1. import stl files
2. block 1 vol 1, block 2 vol 2, block 3 vol 3 ## Sets regions for material assignment
3. imprint all, merge all ## Get a conforming mesh [OPTIONAL]
4. volume all scheme tetmesh, volume <id> size <size> ## Set the mesh scheme
5. mesh volume all ## Mesh the volumes
If you instead want non-conforming interfaces between the volumes, but want to apply a contact interaction between them, you can create sidesets for each of the interacting surfaces.
Hi gvernon, thank you very much for the suggested workflow. I have been working my way through your suggested workflow and have had a couple of rising issues. When I âimprint all, merge allâ I get: ERROR: Tile error in FacetBoolean: premature end of list.
I am also not clear on the syntax of your workflow for #4. volume all scheme tetmesh, volume size . I have not had much luck finding relatable syntax in the user documentation that advises clearly what I should put after volume or size and if these values go inside of the < >, or if this just denotes a value should be entered. I am still trying to learn and understand the syntax.
Lastly, when I just omit "volume size " and just use the command "volume all scheme tetmesh, then mesh with âmesh volume allâ, I get a mesh but I have overlapping surfaces. I was under the assumption that when you do the imprint, it was equivalent of a Boolean operation from one surface to the other, such that the two surfaces would them be perfectly matched, but if that was the case then I shouldnât have any surfaces overlapping. The error I get is:
"Meshgems does not mesh overlapping surfaces in the same meshing operation. Consider doing a âfind overlapâ check and meshing these surfaces separately.
I do not want any overlap of the surface interface, just for them to have matching topography. Do I need to do a Boolean operation first, then imprint all, merge all?
I am not able to attach an image of what I am seeing as I am a new user to this forum otherwise I would. Any suggestions? Thank you again for your help with getting my model to a useable state to be solved in Abaqus.
Iâm finding myself in a very similar situation. So I was wondering if I could get any guidance or help by anyone.
Long story short, I am trying to do very similar. I am trying to take two different geometries and basically imprint/merge and mesh them together to create a conforming mesh them but to keep them in different blocks so that in a FEM solver I have I can specify the subdomains based on the blocks. I am attaching a screenshot to this post. It should all be working, and I donât necessarily get errors, but when I do this I get 0 surfaces consolidated and only two vertices being consolidated, which tells me that it is only connecting the two meshes at a single point basically. When running some reaction-diffusion equations in the solver, I confirm that this is whatâs going on. I am starting propagation in the upper geometry hoping that it will also propagate the bottom one; you can see in the screenshot that the propagation front goes all the way in the top geometry but it gets to the corners and it tries propagating to the bottom geometry (so that is where the only connection is happening, while it should be across all the bottom surface of the top geometry and the top surface of the bottom geometry). I am not sure how I can fix this. I tried meshing them separately and them imprinting the volumes and merging, imprinting the surfaces and merging, but I still havenât gotten it to work. Any help and guidance will be greatly appreciated!
