GiD forum

Hello guys,

I want to mesh shell structure by using a "hexaeder elements". There will be underlying and also extruded surface, also thickness direction - perpendicular to the surface.

Right I extrude a curve to a surface (translate + extrude) to generate geometry. After that I'm extruding result surface to volume - offset + extrude. At the ent I mesh the volume.


Well. in my FE calculation element's definition is sensitive to mesh numering, so first four nodes should be in lower surface. Second four nodes should be in upper surface. My problem starts, because structured mesh generated by GID may be oriented in the plane of the shell instead of perpendicular to it (each is Hexaeder is turned by 90 degree).

And my question is: is there any way to get better control over the node numbering?

Thanks for your reply,
Best regards!

There is not more control over the 'element connectivities direction' of the structured mesh.

You can try creating the surface an its structured mesh of quadrilaterals, and then use the copy tool to extrude hexaedra along a translation.
You will have as result the hexas and also the original and copy of quadrilaterals, could delete the unwanted quads in a second step
(can use a selection filter to select only the quadrilaterals
Mesh->Edit mesh->Delete->Elements
filter:elementtype=quadrilateral
and select all (e.g. 1:end), only quads will remain in the selection