Adding additional CAD elements to existing simulation

[bryanPG]

In order to speed up time to run a set of simulations, I was wondering if it is possible to add an additional CAD model to an existing simulation run so contacts, boundary conditions, etc need to be reassigned.

Thanks!
Bryan

[AnnaFless]

Hi Bryan (@bryanPG),

Thanks for your question - I think this is along the lines of what @jousefm answered here:

FEA on design iterations without starting over

Hello. I have a basic question. Say you run an FEA and the result is not great, so you want to make a tweak to the model. Obviously, you don’t want to have to set up the entire FEA parameters all over again (faces, loads, etc.). But, if you’re importing new geometry, does this mean that you must essentially start over? Thank you.

So, you would upload a second CAD model to the project (note you can have as many CAD models as needed in a single project):

You will then need to mesh the geometry and then follow the steps for duplication of the simulation in the link above. This will save most of the settings that you have input from the initial simulation so you will just need to reassign the bcs, contacts, and materials.

Best,
Anna

[bryanPG]

Thanks! This helps.

[bryanPG]

So everything worked as promised, but what I was really getting at was a way to speed up the overall process of testing different designs.

Using the proposed workflow, the tedious part of setting up the model still remains because it takes a long time to set up all the contacts and constraints.

A straightforward way of doing this is allowing meshed solids be excluded from the final simulation.

Set up the model>disable any bodies that you don’t want to include in the simulation>run

[AnnaFless]

Hi Bryan (@bryanPG),

Thanks for your feedback here - we are working on ways to improve the workflows for testing different designs (ie automatic contact detection, etc). I will pass this along to the product team.

Thanks!
Anna