1. Home
  2. Solidworks CAD Design software
  3. Number of faces/edges slowing down model??

Number of faces/edges slowing down model??

Hi all,

We are using Cosmos to analyse a large surface model. When meshing you want to make sure the nodes on the edge of a face are matching up to the nodes on the edge of the next face. One way to do this is to use the split face so that every edge of one face is the same length as the face beside it. Man... hope that made sense.

Anyway... we are finding that Solidworks starts going really slow when the number of faces and edges in the part start getting up a bit... (into double figures for the number of faces)

Has anyone else found this and know of a workaround or is it just a limitation in the software?

Cheers,

Ian.

Reply to
The Cheat
Loading thread data ...

Why dont you give the surfaces some thickness and then do a solid mesh? Using surfaces works fine in the big boy realms of Nastran etc but I have found Solidworks and therefore Cosmosworks prefer solids.

Reply to
Anonymous

Sorry I should have been clearer. The problem has nothing to do with Cosmos. The meshing is still working fine but before we even load cosmos solidworks is running painfully slow. i.e. taking minutes to select multiple edges.

Reply to
The Cheat

found Solidworks and therefore Cosmosworks prefer solids.

As above the meshing and the solving is working fine, this is not an FEA/Cosmos problem.

Cheers, Ian.

Reply to
The Cheat

I have seen SW slow to a crawl when the number of faces goes up. This is also true if it is a dumb solid. If you can isolate the issue to graphics card or cpu that might help steer you towards an answer.

Historically there have been a number of problems doing shell models in CosmosWorks and DesignStar. One is getting the mesh to jive on adjacent edges and the other is how to tell which way the surface normal of the element is facing. Both of these can cause grief since there is no way to stitch together a mesh or realign faces that I know of.

I don't even bother with SW when doing shell models anymore, either I do them from scratch in Cosmos/M or I do them in FEMAP in Nastran.

Using thin solids has its problems.

TOP

Reply to
TOP

Thanks for reply TOP. CosmosWorks does have an easy way of flipping the shell elements after you mesh it. And yes to get the nodes to line up on the edges is proving dificult. Its bizzare that the actal model is not changing much, just splitting faces and yet Solidworks can't handle it, As a company we are looking into FEMAP.

What are your thoughts on it as an FEA package? Compared to say Ansys or Abaqus?

Ian.

Reply to
The Cheat

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.