Mesh importation: NASTRAN, PATRAN, UNV (IDEAS) standard formats

PATRAN, NASTRAN UNV and MED formats

The principle of operation of the importation is as follows: all the vertexes, edges and facets of volume elements and/or surface elements of initial file of NASTRAN, PATRAN, UNV or MED format are converted into points, lines and faces of the final file in the Flux project.

Conversion

The entities of initial file in NASTRAN, PATRAN, UNV or MED format are read and converted into Flux entities as in table below.

Entities of initial file are converted into …
nodes points defined by parameterized coordinates
line elements lines of edge type
surface elements faces of list facet type

groups * :

component or material

volumes
Note: * The group concept, regrouping volume elements having the same material in the initial file, enables the creation of volumes in the Flux project.

Options for conversion

The options for conversion proposed to the user are of two types: general options for conversion available for all formats

  • particular options, specific to the format NASTRAN, PATRAN, UNV or MED

Specific options

The options for conversion specific to the NASTRAN, PATRAN, UNV or MED formats are presented in the table below.

Option Choice Description
Import mesh

import mesh

(by default)

the following elements are imported:

  • nodes
  • line elements
  • surface elements
  • volume elements
do not import mesh the mesh is not imported
Important: Whatever the selected option (importation with or without mesh), the mesh elements are always used for the geometry building.

Interest of mesh importation

The interest of choices suggested for the option of mesh data importation is presented in the table below.

Option Interest Utilization
with mesh allows to have a complete file ready for the physics (the complete geometry is meshed)

strategy 1*:

importation of the complete computation domain (with IB)

without mesh avoid the command delete mesh to finish the geometry building

strategy 2*:

importation of a specific part of the device