2D geometry Imported from SlidWorks

[RAALVM]

How Can I mesh a 2D geometry imported from SolidWorks? I didn't find any information on this!

I have made two surfaces parts in SolidWorks and imported in Mechanical but the Generate 2D Mesh Button is disabled in mecanical and if I go with Generate 2D mesh I get an error (which is expected)

Can you help me?

[AstroJohnPE · Accepted solution]

Hi RAALVM,

You can only use the 2D mesher in Simulation Mechanical to mesh sketch planes in Simulation. That is, "Draw > Draw > New Sketch Plane". "DWG" and "DXF" files can be opened into a sketch plane, so the first thing to try is to export your Solidworks sketch to one of those formats.

Your original post may have a typo. You wrote "if I go with Generate 2D mesh I get an error". Since the generate 2D mesh button is disabled, I presume you meant that you tried Generate 3D Mesh. What was the error that you received? I know that 3D surfaces can be meshed from some CAD packages (such as Inventor), but I do not know about Solidworks.

Another option is to extrude your 2D parts to make them 3D, and import that model into Simulation. You have the option to mesh only the surfaces that you want to make 2D, or you can mesh the entire 3D model and delete the lines that are not part of the 2D mesh. For both cases, you will be using the 3D mesher.

Note that if you will be creating 2D elements, the mesh must be in the YZ plane at X=0.

[RAALVM]

You are right the there was a typo.

When I try to mesh only the surface I get the error:

Input surface mesh does not enclose a watertight solid