I frequently model structures that have thin cross sections but are welded and oriented in ways that make plate/shell elements undesirable. It would be nice to be able to define requirements for meshing brick/tet elements such that one could have greater control over their generation.   An example of this is a welded structure of thin walled square tubing where von Mises stress is important to the design. The ability to control the meshing so that there are at least 3 elements through the thickness of the tubing but the elements are long and slender enough that there isn't too many elements would be advantageous. Additionally, this may help minimize the issue when the mesher goes into the mode where is "Closes Remaining Voids" ad infinitum.   Perhaps one way of doing this is to select two surfaces and define a minimum number of elements that must be placed in between them for standard brick/tet elements. Thoughts? Show More

I often work with large plate structures with many overlapping parts that are welded or bolted.  Using midplane mesh should be the best way to achieve this to achieve a reasonable run time/accuracy compromise.  With the help of your support staff, we have explored the many ways to achieve this but have found that midplane meshing is too hard to use (see my posts or history with subscription centre).   I found that I have to resort to using 20 node brick elements often only 1 element thick to achieve a reasonable run time/accuracy compromise.   What would be very helpful is to add a way of adding contacts between midplane meshed parts just like between solid elements (i.e. bonded, welded contacts etc).  Hopefully this could be done automatically or manually.   In addition, It would be great if we could add bolts to midplane meshed parts just like solid meshed parts.   Along with this, it would be wonderful to have an easy method of adding welds between midplane meshed parts. Show More