- [Lecturer] We've seen that creating a mesh
in a CAD model is a compromise between
a number of elements, the element quality,
and putting a fine enough mesh
in regions of high stress gradient.
SOLIDWORKS has a range of tools
to allow finer control over the meshing process.
We're first going to look at the
curvature based mesh control.
Now we're going to save this model straight away.
So File Save As.
We're going to call this baseline 10.
Again it's asking us if we want to copy the result files.
The only result files we have
are the mesh representation of the quality,
the jacobian and the aspect ratios,
so they're being called result files by SOLIDWORKS.
So we want to keep hold of those for the moment.
Now the reason for saving the database
now is that the mesher can be unstable
and occasionally it can hang the database.
If this occurs in your work then
abandon this version and revert back to baseline nine.
Curvature base meshing recognizes only curvature
on surfaces and edges, and increases
the mesh locally in these regions.
Right mouse click on the mesh icon again
and say, create mesh.
Now click the mesh parameters option, they're open here
and check the radio button for curvature based messing.
The global size is still set roughly
to out value of point four.
We can see if we hover over the icon here,
called the maximum element size.
Come down here we can see, this is the minimum element size,
and what we want to do is to use the spin wheel
to come down to the smallest possible value,
which is around about .0134.
If we go to the next control, if we hover over it.
It's the minimum number of elements
in a circle, so any kind of arc or circle
that we have, saying how many elements
can we have around that feature.
At the moment the default is set to eight.
We want to push that all the way up.
So use the spin wheel, go up to the maximum which is 36.
So wherever it sees curvature or an arc
it's going to try and put a minimum of 36
elements around that feature.
We're going to leave the growth ratio default at 1.5.
So check okay.
Let's select the little end view.
Looking at the little end we can see
that the curvature based meshing
has been applied to the inside of the base here
and also to the outside face here.
It's also picked up the curvature
in these machine pocket regions around here.
Let's go back to the standard view.
We can see the same thing has happened
at the big end, around these pocket regions here
where there is curvature, you've got
saturated mesh, again we have more elements
on the outer surface and the inside surface.
Let's go to the little end.
Now the curvature on the inside and the outside
faces the little end, is given a different
mesh density on each.
That's actually making mesh transition
quite awkward through the thickness.
We also know that increasing the mesh density
of the vertex of the fillet radius
is not a good idea in this particular case,
we're going to get collapsed elements.
Because there's curvature here
the curvature based meshing will
tend to give us smaller elements
in this region in here.
Also curvature based meshing
hasn't been very useful in this case,
it can be a very powerful tool.
I wanted to demonstrate its usage.
It's always worth trying curvature based meshing
to see if it can improve the mesh.
So in conclusion, curvature based meshing
is very powerful, but it will
affect all curved surfaces.
Sometimes if we're interested in
a feature down say the little end,
we do pick up curvature based meshing
at the big end, and at the pockets as well.
There's no particular distinction on which curvature
it's going to be using.
But as I said before, it's always worth
trying to see if it will produce
an efficient mesh, again very quickly.