Feature Request: create nset from elset

1

hello all,
I was cross checking the documentation of Calculix and Abaqus and came across something I miss:
I’m generating a mesh from gmsh and it created all surfaces as elset.
I need to clamp one of them so I used:
*NSET,NSET=clamp,ELSET=Surface9

Unfortunately, this is not supported today.

Thanks,
Max

1 Like
2

Yeah, you could create a feature request on GitHub: Issues · Dhondtguido/CalculiX · GitHub

3

Thanks for the suggestion. I was looking for a place for FR and couldn’t find it.
I probably didn’t search well enough :slight_smile:

4

hey @Kankreu ,
if you use gmsh as a preprocessor, you can also export physical groups directly as node components using the Mesh.SaveGroupsOfNodes option. See also here: Gmsh 4.12.2

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5

Hi,
thanks for the hint, I have actually done that in the past when I was building directly the model in GMSH.
…
//+
Physical Volume(“tuning_fork”, 77) = {1};
//+
Physical Surface(“clamp”, 78) = {12};
Mesh.SaveGroupsOfNodes=1;
Mesh 3;

But I haven’t succeeded (yet) when importing a complex geometry.
I’m not really skilled with Gmsh.
Maybe I can do something similar, knowing that I want to work with Surface 9 and 10 of my geometry.
But the problem is that it currently exports all lines, faces and volume to the input file…While I only need the 2 surfaces and volume.

6

You can simply define the surfaces of interest that you have as a physical group, as you have already done. For complex geometries, you will probably need to look at their numbers beforehand. Then set “Mesh.SaveGroupsOfNodes=-100” to only save nodes that are on surfaces that belong to a physical group. If you also need the nodes on lines, set =-110, or if you only need nodes in the volume and on points =-1001. I think the pattern should be clear.

7

thanks I’ll try that.
If you are interested, I can share the original geometry and my actual script.

regards,
Max