×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

(OP)
Hello,
I am trying to mesh a triangular shell (100x100x100) with tri elements. (see the images in the Zip file)

1. When I specify a size of 3.125 per edge (Free mesh control), the resulting mesh is uniform and structured. See image free-size3125.jpg

2. When I specify a size of 2.0 per edge (Free mesh control), the resulting mesh is not uniform anymore. See image free-size2000.jpg


3. When I specify a size of 3.125 per edge with a structured mesh, the resulting mesh is "strange" . See image structured-size3125.jpg


Questions:
Can I control this problem (the non uniform mesh) without having to partition my structure?
What are the limits of CAE according to meshing techniques?

Thanks for your reply

Regis

RE: Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

Have you tried specifying number of elements per side instead of size?

RE: Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

(OP)
Hi,

I have just tried it.
It gives the same (bad) results.

R

RE: Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

What is 'bad' about the meshes? In all cases they look fine to me. Use the mesh verification tool to see if any would give warnings or errors.

corus

RE: Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

(OP)
Hi Corus,

According to the mechanical response, it is not a "bad" (consider the "") mesh. It even minimise the number of elements.
However, if i need to control that integration points should be on a line parralel to the triangle edge, it would be easier to get a structured (or mapped) mesh.
The only way I found to have a structured mesh was to partition the triangle in smaller triangles.

R

RE: Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

I agree with corus.  Only for trivial meshes can you get an absolutely uniform mesh like the first example.  As long as your aspect ratios are good the mesh is good.  I would mesh this with quads instead since triangles are stiff and 2nd order triangles increase solve time.  I hope this helps.

Rob

RE: Meshing a Triangle with Tri elements

In the 3rd example you can see that Abaqus has partitioned the region into 3 quadrilateral regions, rather than triangular regions. It has done this by taking a line from the mid-point of each side to the centre. I'm not sure why you would need the integration points to be on a line though. It seems to be taking the problem to a fine end of a .. whatever. Quads are better elements as rstubblebeen suggests, and in my view, give smoother results than triangular elements.

corus

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources