Geom/Mesh Utility Menu

This menu contains a set of macros related to working with model geometry, as well as a set for working with FE mesh.

The geometry macros are:
Table 1.
Function Description
Preserve edges Prevents specific edges from being suppressed during autocleanup or batchmeshing.
Project points Projects free points to surface edges. Depending on the tolerance you specify, points may even project to multiple edges. This can be helpful to achieve uniform meshing with regard to weld points.
Isolate Surface Isolates either an inner or an outer surface layer, based on the user selected surface, from a 3D model. This macro works only on the surfaces attached to the selected surface. The other layers and thickness are then placed in a temp directory and masked.
Washer Scales a copy of a selected circular line to 1.5 times its original size, and then trims this new line into the surface. This allows a higher quality mesh around circular holes.
Adj Circ Pts Places four additional fixed points on an inner line, and then projects those points to a concentric line, creating a higher quality mesh.
The mesh macros are:
Table 2.
Function Description
Auto Connectors A pop-up menu opens from which you can create connectors and FE realize them from a master connection file.
Quick Tetramesh Quickly creates an automatic tetrahedral mesh while meeting the requirements for minimum element angle and element size.
Fix 2nd Order Midnodes Improves element quality by moving the mid-edge nodes of second order elements.
Tetra Mesh Optimization utility Fixes slivers and wedges (tetra elements that are so thin as to be nearly planar) by moving nodes to make them more three-dimensional and improve their quality criteria.
Add Washer Creates a layer of washer elements around a circular hole in the mesh.
Trim Hole Creates a circular hole (of a given radius) in the mesh at the selected node (as the center of the hole). An optional layer of washer elements can be created along with a rigid spider along the hole.
Fill Hole Fills the selected hole and remeshes the surrounding mesh to maintain connectivity. This macro does not remove any rigid spiders that fill the hole; if necessary, delete the rigid spider before using this macro.
Box Trim Trims the model along user-defined box and generic box definition. Model cleanup follows the trimming process for LS-DYNA, Nastran and OptiStruct user profiles to remove empty and unused FE entities resulting in an error free solver deck. This feature is useful for reducing the model size to perform local system level analysis.
Bead Creates a bead of a given height and width along the selected two nodes and connects to the surrounding mesh.