Second order elements for slices

[mmrahman]

Hi,

I was wondering whether this is possible to create meshes of cylindrical slices using second order elements in FEBio studio. In other predefined geometries, like cube or cylinder, have the option to mesh using HEX8 or HEX20 elments, but I could not find it for slices. Please let me know if there are other ways to do that.

Thanks a lot.

- Muhammed

[ateshian]

Hi Muhammed,

Yes, there is a workardound to create meshes of cylindrical slices using second order elements: You can create a Patch of desired dimensions and mesh it with QUAD8 elements, then convert it to an Editable mesh. Then Select faces and click on the Revolve Faces tool and revolve them about one of the edges of this patch to create the mesh of a cylindrical slice with PENTA15 and HEX20 elements. Remember to delete the shell mesh that was produced in the initial step, only keeping solid elements (expand the Object in the model tree, then expand Parts and delete the [shell] part by right-clicking on it).

Best,

Gerard

[mmrahman]

Thanks Dr. Ateshian for the workaround. I tried to follow your instructions, but unfortunately, it did not work out. I created two geometries instead: one slice, which I meshed with one element in the radial direction, and one solid arc with the inner radius matching the slice's radius. I converted the penta6 to penta15 of the slice and meshed the solid arc with hex20 elements. Later, I merged two objects and made one object. This solves the problem for now. Nevertheless, there could be a limitation/bug in converting the meshes into slices in current version of FEBio Studio. Conversion of PENTA6 to PENTA15 works very well, but conversion of HEX8 to HEX20 does not.

Thanks,
Muhammed

[ateshian]

Hi Muhammed,

I fixed a small bug in FEBioStudio to improve the robustness of the Revolve Faces tool, so make sure to use the most recent development version. That might resolve the issue you're having with my workaround.

Best,

Gerard

[mmrahman]

Thanks Dr. Ateshian for the update. I tested it according to your suggestion and it worked as expected.

Thanks,
Muhammed