Mesh Utility Menu Tools

The Utility menu is normally located on the left side of the graphics region, in the tab area pane. However, it can also be dragged-and-dropped to the right-side explorer pane, if that pane is open. It contains page selection buttons at the bottom of the menu, with the current page’s button depressed. The Geom/Mesh menu contains a set of macros related to working with model geometry, as well as a set for working with FE mesh.

Trim Hole Tool

This function creates a circular hole of a given radius in the mesh at a node specifying the center of the hole.  An optional layer of washer elements can be created along with a rigid spider along the hole. Clicking Trim Hole within the Utility Menu opens the Trim Hole tool.

First click on the nodes selector, then select the nodes on your model for the centers of each hole that you wish to create and then click proceed.

The options in the Mesh Trimming with Circular Holes dialog determine the type of hole that is created at each chosen node. Mouse over each setting for more information.

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Fill Hole Tool

The Fill Hole utility fills in one or more holes in your geometry with automatically-generated mesh. Clicking Fill Hole within the Utility Menu opens the Fill Hole tool. When you open the Fill Hole function, a new dialog opens:


There are two methods of filling holes:


Manual

Use this option to select the holes that you wish to fill:

Click the yellow Select Nodes button. The panel area is once again displayed, with a nodes selector active.

Select nodes on the edges of the holes that you wish to fill.

Click proceed in the panel area. The Filling holes with mesh dialog returns, with the Select Nodes button now green to indicate that nodes have been chosen.

Click the Fill button to fill the selected holes with mesh.

Automatic

Use this option to select holes automatically based on size. Type a value into the entry field labeled Fill circular holes with radius smaller than:. The model is automatically scanned for holes smaller than this value, and attempt to fill them with mesh.

Fill

Click this button to perform the fill operation, whether you choose to select your holes manually or automatically.

Reject

If you do not like the results of the last fill operation, click this button to undo it. Note that this only undoes a single click of the fill button, so it can only undo multiple fills if they were created simultaneously during a single fill operation.

Close

Close the Filling holes with mesh dialog.

Note: 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.

Add Washer Tool

This utility creates one or more layers of washer elements around a circular hole in an existing mesh.

Clicking Add Washer within the Utility Menu opens the Add Washer tool.

washer_utility_start

First click on the nodes selector, then select the nodes on a single node from the edge of a hole.  Once you do so and click proceed, all nodes on the hole are selected automatically and the utility opens.

The utility automatically determines the Hole radius. You can specify a Number of layers of concentric washer elements to add around the hole.


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If you choose to add more than one layer, you can also choose whether or not to have all layers be Uniform in width, or to allow them to have Varying widths from one another.

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If you choose Varying, each layer displays separately in the table below this option, allowing you to specify a different value for each layer.

Each layer of elements can be given a specific Width (the size of the elements) or a Scale (a factor of the hole's radius--for example, using a scale of 1.0 produces washer elements whose size is the same as the hole's radius).
washer_utility_width2                      washer_utility_scale1
Mesh size 5, 2 washer layers of width 2.                  Mesh size 5, 1 washer layer of scale 1.0.

Finally, you can select a few creation options:
washer_utility_spider                     washer_utility_localcoordinate
Create rigid spider along hole                             Create local coordinate system

Minimum number of nodes around hole: Prevents the washer from using fewer nodes than this around the hole, in order to maintain a desired level of granularity. When active, this also enables the Density numeric box, which lets you specify the exact minimum number. Note: a larger number than this may be generated in order to generate a uniform mesh of washer elements, particularly when using smaller numbers for the minimum.