The automation of the simulation model is crucial to save time when modifications are needed. There are projects, that during the iterative simulations the geometry changes. There is a way to fully automate the procedure and the answer is Selection Recipes. Simcenter 3D provides the capability to select entities such as meshes, polygon faces/ bodies/ edges, curves, and points according to the color or the name. Selection recipes appear under the selection recipes node in the Simulation Navigator.

Figure 1: Selection Recipes position.

For example, you might create a selection recipe that selects all polygon faces named FORCE, and then apply a force load to the selection recipe. If you subsequently name another face FORCE, that face is automatically selected by the selection recipe, and the force load is automatically applied to that face.

You can use several strategies to select the entities of interest. The most used are the following:

Bounding Volume

Selects all points, nodes, elements, element edges or faces, meshes, curves, polygon edges, faces, bodies, or any combination of those entities within a defined area. The position of a bounding volume typically remains constant unless you edit it. However, with the arbitrary bounding volume method, the bounding volume adjusts automatically if the size or position of the polygon body or 3D mesh changes.

Figure 2: Elements inside the Bounding Volume Selection Recipe.

Attribute

Selects all points, curves, or polygon edges, faces, or bodies that have one or more particular attributes (such as the same name or color). You can also use an attribute selection recipe to select all of a particular type of entity by using only a wildcard for the name. The selection recipe selects all the specified types of entities, whether or not they have a name. You can define the entity name and other attributes in the part, FEM, or Simulation file. In addition, when you create or edit an attribute selection recipe, or when you right-click an existing single-strategy attribute selection recipe in the Simulation Navigator, you can apply the attributes in the selection recipe to selected entities in the model.

Figure 3: Attribute Selection Recipe.

Label Range

Selects a range of nodes or elements identified by their labels.

Figure 4: Label Range Selection Recipes.

The combination of two or more selection recipes is called a Stacked Selection Recipe. For example, you can choose all the bodies that are red, then all the related faces, and finally, the faces the area is between a lower and higher value.

Figure 5: Example of Stacked Selection Recipes.

This technique is useful for the selection of polygon edges that you want automatically to use for mesh control. In case there is a geometrical change, Simcenter 3D can find these faces and automatically discretize them.

In the following video, there is a tutorial for Attribute Selection Recipes and Stacked Selection Recipes. The combination of recipes and mesh control can reduce rapidly the meshing time.

We at FEAC hope that this blog post has been interesting and that you will be able to create a nice FE Analysis after reading this. If you have any questions, you are always welcome to contact us at support@feacomp.com

Author:

Giannis Georgiadis – Structural Simulation Analyst at FEAC Engineering Mechanical & Aeronautics Engineer M.Sc e-mail: g.georgiadis@feacomp.com LinkedIn Profile: Giannis Georgiadis