Creating a new 3D volume mesh

After creating a 3D mesh structural model, the next stage in geomechanical simulation is to create a 3D volume mesh suitable for use by a simulator such as Abaqus. You do this with the 3D Meshing workflow of the model > 3D Mesh strip.

This step can only be executed if the model contains 5 mesh boundaries.

To do this, make sure the 3D mesh structural model you want to use is selected in the Model drop-down list on the Mesh Volume form (model > 3D Mesh > Mesh Volume), and click OK on the form.

Meshing can take quite some time depending on the size of the model. A progress bar is provided on the right side of the status bar along with a Cancel button in case the meshing is taking too long to complete.

A 3D volume mesh will be created with the same name as your 3D mesh structural model and will appear in the 3D Meshes folder in the JewelExplorer. The created volume mesh might not always be suitable for Finite Element calculations. If an error is thrown, most likely the outer surfaces do not form a closed volume.

QC-ing the 3D Mesh

It is important to QC the mesh, also when no warnings have been thrown during creation of it.

  1. Check the mesh quality by viewing various properties of the tetrahedrons. See Checking the quality of the volume mesh.
  2. Compartments and zones are automatically generated for the 3D volume mesh, based on the tri-meshes in your input 3D Mesh Structural model. The generated compartments are normally automatically assigned to the generated zones. Always visually QC these generated zones and compartments. Zone and compartment creation might trigger the following warnings.
    • Error when the application was not able to assign a compartment to a zone - This will block the simulation at a later stage. Each compartment must be assigned to a zone. To manually assign a compartment to a zone, go to the compartment's context menu in the JewelExplorer and select 'Assign to Zone'. QC your compartments and zones, to find the root cause of why the compartment was not assigned to a zone.
    • Warning when an 'empty zone' was created - An 'empty zone' is a zone to which no compartment was assigned. Although the simulation will be able to run ('empty zones' do not block the simulation) it is strongly recommended to QC your compartments and zones, and find the root cause of this mismatch.

Using the context menu of compartments or zones, you can also create 3D mesh properties based on one or more compartments or zones. These properties can be used for visualization and further calculations. You can use the Display Settings option in the context menu to choose a different render mode.

When you are done with the quality check and display settings of your volume mesh, you can proceed to the next step in the Volume Meshing workflow, Mesh Options, where you can convert the mesh from first to second order, and also allow discontinuities in properties at compartment boundaries.