FEA Topology for Reanalysis

FEA topology can handle both shell and solid elements. For 3D models, the recovered iso-surface can be tetrameshed-by-property automatically. FEA topology provides two options for the processing of non-design elements:

Keep smooth narrow layer

Retain an artificial layer of elements around the non-design space in the interpretation.

Split all quads

Split quad elements in the non-design space, if present, to generate a tetra connection between design and non-design regions.

FEA topology preserves boundary conditions by inheriting them from the original model (<prefix>.fem). Those boundary conditions unattached to nodes/elements after geometry recovery are deleted to ensure reanalysis.

Figure 1 and Figure 2 show FEA topology for reanalysis with following input data definition:

File

block

Density threshold

0.300

Figure 1 was run with Keep smooth narrow layer around disabled and Split to quads enabled.

Figure 1. Result of FEA Topology for Reanalysis

Figure 2 was run with Keep smooth narrow layer around enabled, and Split all quads disabled. This approach creates a layer of elements around the non-design region and pyramids around the quad elements, if quads exist, to connect to the design space tetrahedral elements.

Figure 2. Result of FEA Topology with a Layer of Elements around Non-Design Space

Tetramesh will be applied on the iso-surface result if there is one close volume at least. The advantages of the tetramesh in FEA topology include:

• Tetramesh can be performed by property.
• The flexibility of controlling the number of tetramesh retries by perturbing the density threshold value, in cases where tetramesh sometimes fails.