Best way to create conformal mesh for linear elasticity?
Posted: 03 May 2023, 06:00
Hello,
I'm a complete newbie both to Elmer and FEM. Forgive my ignorance, I'm learning as fast as I can.
I would like to model bass guitar neck stiffness using various type of carbon reinforcement inside a wood neck. I've looked at some similar efforts and they don't cover what I'm interested in.
Looking over the workflow for FEM, it seems the first steps are to create meshes for the wood and carbon elements, and get them into Elmer. And it seems from what I gather that in order for things to work smoothly, the meshes need to be "conformal", so that the two elements combine properly. Then I need to somehow convey that the elements are bonded (in this case the bond can be considered "perfect", the main deformation will be in the wood and carbon). Then I need to learn how to set up the simulation.
Is this more or less correct?
If so, then the initial challenge is creating the conformal meshes. I do my modeling in Fusion 360, and I'm thinking it will not export these types of meshes - you basically select one "body" at a time for export so there is probably no linkage between the meshes. If that's right, then I'd either need to somehow "fix up" the meshes, or use some other tool to create the meshes instead of Fusion 360. I saw Salome mentioned here and that might work. My shapes are not simple extrusions, but if I were able to define two cross section sketches at the neck endpoints, and loft between them, that would be good enough for this modeling.
I'd be grateful for an advice on how to go about this task. Is Salome the right path? If not, then what? Oh, one more possibility. If Elmer or another tool could "subtract" two meshes, then I could create a mesh for the entire neck in Fusion 360, then one for the internal carbon reinforcement, then create the conformal meshes by subtracting the carbon mesh from the total mesh. Hope that makes sense.
I'm a complete newbie both to Elmer and FEM. Forgive my ignorance, I'm learning as fast as I can.
I would like to model bass guitar neck stiffness using various type of carbon reinforcement inside a wood neck. I've looked at some similar efforts and they don't cover what I'm interested in.
Looking over the workflow for FEM, it seems the first steps are to create meshes for the wood and carbon elements, and get them into Elmer. And it seems from what I gather that in order for things to work smoothly, the meshes need to be "conformal", so that the two elements combine properly. Then I need to somehow convey that the elements are bonded (in this case the bond can be considered "perfect", the main deformation will be in the wood and carbon). Then I need to learn how to set up the simulation.
Is this more or less correct?
If so, then the initial challenge is creating the conformal meshes. I do my modeling in Fusion 360, and I'm thinking it will not export these types of meshes - you basically select one "body" at a time for export so there is probably no linkage between the meshes. If that's right, then I'd either need to somehow "fix up" the meshes, or use some other tool to create the meshes instead of Fusion 360. I saw Salome mentioned here and that might work. My shapes are not simple extrusions, but if I were able to define two cross section sketches at the neck endpoints, and loft between them, that would be good enough for this modeling.
I'd be grateful for an advice on how to go about this task. Is Salome the right path? If not, then what? Oh, one more possibility. If Elmer or another tool could "subtract" two meshes, then I could create a mesh for the entire neck in Fusion 360, then one for the internal carbon reinforcement, then create the conformal meshes by subtracting the carbon mesh from the total mesh. Hope that makes sense.