Inventor 2012 FEA and pressure loads

[Dave__G]

I am using Inventor 2012 Professional and wish to use the embedded FEA to perform some basic stress analysis.

I am desiging a part which will be under an internal pressure and I would like to simulate this internal pressure to ensure my wall thickness is adequate.  Since my part is irregular in shape using simple pressure vessel theory is not really possible so FEA is the best approach.

(I think!) I am fine with setting up the model (materials, constraints, etc) but my question relates to whether it is possible to apply a pressure load to many surfaces at once without literally having to sit and click on each surface i.e. is there a slick way of selecting all internal surfaces at once?  I have tried creating a zero offset surface of the internal surfaces in the modeller environment but it is not possible to select this surface when applying the pressure load.

Whilst I appreciate that the model should be simplified for FEA alaysis, I am not too worried in this instance as I am OK for it to take an hour or so to compute.  Plus there is no symmetry so slicing it is not an option.

Any thoughts before I embark on several hundred mouse clicks of boredom?

Thanks

Dave

[Dave__G]

No one...?

[henderh]

Hi Dave,

  Currently, I know of no other easy way (i.e. no window select for faces is supported).  It has been logged as wishlist 1237514.

  Please let us know if you have any additional questions, comments or suggestions.

Best regards, -Hugh

[JDMather]

Can you attach the model, or at least a picture?

One thing I do if the part has symmetry is to add a Split feature to make it easy to pick internal faces then in FEA exclude the Split feature from analysis.  This doesn't really solve your problem though.

[henderh]

There is also project Simulus Tech preview, which has window select available.  However, the window select will also select the 'back faces' in addition to the ones visible in camera view.  We're hoping to add a back-face exclusion  modifier soon.  It might help though, but as JD said, we'd need more info.

You can check it out the thread here: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/new-free-tech-preview-on-Autodesk-Labs-Project-Simu...

[Dave__G]

Thanks for all of the replies.

As I put in my original post, my part has no symmetry so I cannot use a split feature to simplify.  Also, I'm not at liberty to post any pics of models because of a confidentially agreement with my customer.

Hugh, thanks for logging the wishlist item however, a window select isn't probably the best solution because it involves being able to visibly see the surfaces (though it would still be better than individual selection as we have at the moment).  Fine on reasonably simple models but on complex geometry (say a cylinder head for example) window select may not help.  Maybe the 'automatic face chain' option would be better?

Another suggestion (though the IP may be protected by another CAD provider!) is a 'seed and boundary' approach.  You select a single 'seed' surface somewhere in the area you wish to select and then select one or more 'boundary' sufaces to bound the selection.  When all boundary surfaces have been defined, the surface selection is then generated by starting at the seed surface, working outwards to include all adjacent surfaces until constrined by the boundary surfaces.  This approach works very well for 'hollow' models where you are interested on what's going on inside and is very useful in the part modelling environment too for creating copies of geometry for trimming or sculpting.  If I've not explained the above very well, let me know and I'll try and post a pictorial of what I mean.

Dave

[henderh]

Hi Dave,

  Excellent suggestions!

   I've passed this info along to the pertinent software user experience designers / architects, and added the new info to the original wishlist item.

  We apprecieate your time.

Best regards, -Hugh