Hello everyone,
I’m a new Prepomax user and I’m starting to really enjoy the software. Could someone tell me how I can easily mesh this HSS using transfinite elements or an extruded mesh? The process of splitting it into multiple bodies is long and tedious—does anyone have a more practical and user-friendly solution? The HSS is 10x10x3/8-20 feet long
Note: The meshing example I provided was generated using another software.
Thanks you.
Why don’t you turn this into a (mid)surface geometry and generate a quad-dominated shell mesh ? It would be much easier, and that’s the recommended approach for thin-walled parts. Then you can even extrude this into a solid mesh using the Thicken Shell Mesh tool if needed.
Thickened shell hss.pmx (4.8 MB)
Thanks to FEAnalyst for your quick response.
This component is part of a relatively large assembly—specifically, a telescopic spreader bar. My main focus is on the stresses in the pin (shear, bending moment, bearing, and ovalization of the HSS at the holes), as this is the weakest point in the assembly.
I’m wondering whether there is a simpler way to analyze this type of structure without having to go through the full process of converting the assembly into a combination of shell and solid bodies.
It’s not as tedious as it may sound. You don’t even have to get the midsurfaces; you could just extract the outer or inner surface and define an offset in the Thicken Shell Mesh tool.
I don’t know what CAD software you are using, but in FreeCAD, such surface extractions are much easier than having to split the geometry into subvolumes with 5/6 faces (3/4 edges each) to apply the transfinite algorithm. Such cutting quickly becomes extremely tedious in FreeCAD.
Here’s an example using your geometry:
