Just to give some background: I’m working on a compression test involving an auxetic structure. I ran the static analysis aiming for a displacement of 15 mm, but the simulation failed with results and stopped around 9–10 mm.
I have a couple of questions:
What does the error message “ERROR: Too many cutbacks” in PrePoMax actually mean, and how can I fix it?
After this error, the next step shows a distorted mesh in the results viewer.
I started with a coarse mesh and gradually refined it. I noticed a pattern: the finer the mesh, the farther the simulation progresses (up to about 10mm of displacement), but it still fails before completion. If I keep refining the mesh to push the simulation further, I’ll end up with an extremely large model that takes too long to solve.
Is there a better way to solve this issue without having to rely solely on finer mesh?
The direct meaning is that CalculiX had to reduce the increment size too many times because of non-convergence. But it’s a very generic message and only indicates convergence problem which may have many causes (usually contact is the culprit).
This is understandable - mesh refinement often improves convergence. Of course, you could run a 2D analysis to reduce the size of the mesh. But, as I said, contact is often the cause of non-convergence so you can try adjusting its settings as well.
I’ve run into the error “increment size smaller than minimum” again during my simulation. I’ve read in other posts that the minimum increment size can’t go below 1e-5 or 1e-6. Right now, I already have mine set to 1e-6, which seems to be the lowest limit.
