3d cooling channel patran file

[Anonymous]

Friends

I had some diffculty simplifying my 3D cooling channel mesh. when meshing the cad file (with parasolid format) that contained 3D cooling channel, I ended with very small meshes around the bends, quite unneccessary for my analysis. (I got these very small elements I think because there were many surfaces stiched together in the CAD file). for cooling channel, I got 1.5 milion elements by meshing the cad file.

to get around that problem I did the following

• exported my cad file as STL file
• made a new study and imported STL file as the work part
• 3D-meshed the part in mold flow (smooth mesh much better than previous)
• exported the study file as patran file
• opened the project that I was working on
• imported the patran file and assigned 3D channel to it

with patran file, the mesh has 800k elements. half the elements i got before. now that I am making 3D mold mesh, I get a nice clean triangles for the internal surface of the mold, BUT in the mesh log it says:

Mesh with the following settings:

External mold surface edge length: 2.0000 in

Internal mold surface edge length: 0.2000 in

Target number of nodes on circumferences of cylinders: 15

Warning: No cooling channels found.

Generating mold surface mesh

Percent 20 done ....

Percent 40 done ....

Percent 60 done ....

Total number of nodes: 96730 triangles: 193452

Surface aspect ratio: Maximum = 41.0215 average = 2.6852

Percent 100 done ....

A mold surface mesh has been created. Please check the mesh.

A 3D mold mesh can be generated by double-clicking Create 3D Mold Mesh again.

why is that? does cooling channle has to be imported as cad file and be meshed directly by moldflow in the same study?

how does 3D meshing of the cooling channle differ from 3D meshing of the part, mathematically speaking?

[xusho]

Hi Mike,

I guess you created mold external boundary by Mold Surface Wizard. This is supported. Just be reminded:

1. Make generate 3D channel mesh before mold mesh. What you did is correct.

2. The mold external boundary should be large enough, so that 3D channel is inside the mold geometry. 3D channels should not touch mold external boundary.

3. When geenrating mold surface mesh, it will strip the boundary of 3D channels as part of the internal boundary of mold mesh. Make sure 3D channel mesh and part/insert meshes are visible.

4.  "Warning: No cooling channels found" is just a warning. It is displayed when your model does not contain 1D channels. You do not have to use 1D channels when you have 3D channel. So, just ignore this warning.

5. After you have a mold surface mesh, check overlaps and free edges. If found, fix manually.

6. Finally, generate 3D mold mesh.

It is NOT recommended to repair 3D mesh by Mesh Repair Wizard.

If 3D mesh is not satisfactory, try to mesh with different parameters, eg. edge length, layers...

Let me know if you have other problems.

Mold meshing is relatively new, I am happy to help if needed.

[Anonymous]

Shandong

I wend through the steps you mentioned. it makes the mold intertnal and external surfaces no problem, but when I start meshing the mold block, it gives me this error

** Error 1900303 ** Nothing visible to mesh.

Entities to be meshed should be on visible layers, and properties should be consistent with mesh aim.

CAD models can only be meshed on Windows platforms.

I believe it is because I did not imported any cad file as "3D cooling channel", instead i added the patran file and assigned 3D channel to it.

it seems moldflow somehow differentiate between "importing a cad file and as 3D cooling channel" and "adding the file assigning 3D channel property to it".

My 2nd question is

Can I have a 3D model wih beam cooling channel and run cool FEM analysis?

I will cosider this option if feasible, since I had so many problem with 3D cooling channel and 3D mold meshing.

[mppkumar]

Mike

To answer your 2nd question,

yes ...we can do cool (FEM) analysis in 3D model with beam elements

Step 1 : Model cooling circuits in beam elements, all beam elements must have corresponding curves attached to it

Step 2 : Create Mold surface 

Step 3 : Mesh the Mold block -- this creates mesh around part & cooling channels, do mesh correction if required

Step 4 : Mold mesh 3D

Step 5 : Launch the analysis

Thanks

M P Pradeep Kumar

[Anonymous]

just ran my the FEM cool analysis, the model now has

3D part

3D cold runner

3D heater

Cooling channel with beam elements (iges cuves)

3D mold mesh (by wizzard)

got this error:

** ERROR 312520 ** A 3D Cool (FEM) cooling analysis has been selected, however dual domain part

elements are present in the model. A 3D tetrahedral part mesh and dual-domain

part mesh can not coexist in a Cool (FEM) analysis. Remove the dual domain part

elements.

made a cutting plane, there is no tetrahedral elements of the mold body inside the mold surfaces?!

it seems on the surface of 3D heaters I have both Tetrahedral elements and Triangles

cliking on querry and selecting one the triangles, it shows me T2714 TE1674529

noticed the green check mark to the left of the 3D mold mesh but the button for "create 3D mold mesh" is still active.

I just followed the recommended practices but I have the problam standing. Is it a software bug for 3D mold mesh wizzard?

[xusho]

Hi Mike,

Did you generate the mesh for heaters by 3rd party?

If yes, after adding the mesh to the study, you need to turn off the CAD body for heater. Otherwise, it will be meshed again.

Or, you can just delete triangles for the heater.

[Anonymous]

What i did, I simplified the model as much as I could doing the following:

1. modeled cooling channel with beam elements
2. modeled part+cold runner, heater, and mold block with 3D elements
3. meshed 3D part+cold runner, assigned properties to part section and cold runner section accordingly (importec cad file, parasoild format)
4. meshed beam cooling channels (imported iges file)
5. meshed 3D heater (importec cad file, parasoild format)imported mold block and assigned moving and fixed properties (importec cad file, parasoild format)

• meshed the moldblock (couple of times till went through) by wizzard option, ended up with 900,000 elements.

• meshed the mold block (couple of times till went through), ended up with over 10,000,000 elements, which I am not happy with it. (mold flow gave me meshing completer prompt message while no mesh were present on screen), lowered the Global Edge Length parameter and moldflow started meshing on 2nd attempt while producing some messages in mesh log, i have attached the mesh log file it it helps.

  First attempt:

  Encountered problem when meshing face 786.

  Second attempt:

  Trying to recover from previous error(s).

  Retrying the mesh process using a fallback tessellation method.

  Mesh density defined on faces will not be used by this approach."

both of the model are set for analysis and I will post the results once done.

[Anonymous]

the model with CAD imported mold blocks were analized COOL Fill Pack and Warp all successfully (resonable results) with a bunch of warning about "not touching elements", which is not important to me

The model with wizzard mold blocks failed for the flow analysis

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

I think here is a bug

it is not possible to import 3D cooling channel as Patran file (already meshed file) or STL file

instead, one has to add STL file to the study (still cannot attribute 3D channel to it), mesh it with generate mesh (instead of generate 3D channel mesh), then atribute 3D channel to the generated tetras.

[xusho]

Hi Mike,

This is by design:

For 3D channels, you have to start from CAD. It does not support STL or existing meshes from 3rd party.

The analysis has special requirements for 3D channel meshes. The mesh has to be generated inside Moldflow.

[xusho]

Hi Mike,

If the wizard approach fails, you can contact moldflow support team and let them raise an issue. Your study file needs to be attached for investigation. 

Alternatively, you can send your study file to me directly. 

By either way, your model will be treated as confidential.