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.

 

The required calculations go up rapidly.
Get a book on FEM & analysis.

 

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.

 

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

Cheers,
Ian.

 

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

 

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.