General
Midsurfacing: Using Shell Elements
If you work with thin-walled solids, using a midsurface shell model can reduce the degrees of freedom in your model by factors of ten and save hours of time in your analysis and postprocessing. But you’re probably thinking: “Isn’t creating a ...
Coincident Node Move Only
Overview Sometimes you may need to set up a model to have a set of coincident nodes which can be connected together using spring or gap elements. To help prepare such a model, Femap includes a method of moving nodes to be coincident within a ...
Solid Mesh with Beam Elements
Overview Structures like reinforced concrete where steel rebar in encased in solid concrete can be represented by 1-D rod or beam elements for the rebar inside solid 3-D tet-elements for the concrete. When setting up such a model you have to take ...
Non-Manifold Add
You may encounter a situation in your model when the geometry appears to connect and meet up, but is actually discontinuous. Consider this simple model for example, two surfaces that appear to meet and share a common interface or line. However, when ...
Geometry and Mesh Associativity
Overview With FEMAP you can import CAD and FEA models from a wide variety of sources. Instructions Please follow these step-by-step instructions: To import a CAD model select the File / Import / Geometry… menu option and browse and select the CAD ...
Extrude Element Edge
Overview In FEMAP it’s possible to extrude element edges to create new shell elements. Instructions Creating new shell elements is useful when there is no geometry or other edge surfaces available. Let’s see how you can do this by follow these ...
Extend, Merge Mesh
Overview Sometimes you might be faced with a situation where your model contains surfaces that don’t quite meet or match up, so how do you go about generating a contiguous mesh quickly, without having to mess around with the geometry too much? ...
Element Visual Inspection
Overview When FEMAP finishes meshing a model, a brief report of the mesh quality is written to the Messages pane. It's often desirable to visually inspect the worst elements of the mesh, and review their shape, and location in the model, an action ...
Meshing Toolbox in FEMAP
Quickly and interactively edit geometry and create quality mesh using the Femap Meshing Toolbox The Meshing Toolbox is a centralized collection of FEMAP's geometry clean-up and meshing functionalities in a single pane. Below you will find an overview ...
Element Selection by Adjacent Face
Overview Sometimes in the absence of any underlying geometry, finite element selection can become challenging. Femap includes many capabilities that can aid element selection, and in this example we’ll see how to create a group by selecting a number ...
Creating Elements Between Coincident Nodes
Overview The task of creating elements such as springs or gaps between coincident node points can present some challenges. For example, how do you pick the coincident node points individually? Femap offers a couple of solutions to help you create ...