I am doing a static simulation on a leg of a gantry crane. My simulation is timing out and I’m pretty sure it’s because my maximum value for non-orthogonality is 70.9 degrees (my max aspect ratio is 23.4 which shouldn’t be problematic). The high non-orthogonality values are happening at edges (see attached image). I have tried just about every mesh setting and refinement and am still having this issue. How can I improve non-orthogonality on my mesh so I can have a successful run?
Hi @DaryaS, thanks for posting on the forum and welcome to the SimScale Community
Apologies for the delay here - we might have missed your post.
Taking a look at your simulation, I don’t think the issue is related to Non-orthogonality. When it comes to FEA, the most relevant metrics to look at are Skewness and Aspect ratio - which, although could be further improved in your case, shouldn’t cause many issues.
Your simulation is probably timing out due to your mesh’s size of 2.7M nodes (coming from the second order mesh definition). Keep in mind that the results are calculated nodally in FEA.
As to a possible solution, I see two alternatives:
To try and reduce the mesh’s overall size by either applying less refinements or reducing the global fineness (you could also split your model into extrudable ones - to apply extrusion refinements - and associate them with bonded contacts)
Set the element order to “first” manually under element technology and rerun the mesh.
