3D element selection by surfaces or other geometry
I have a question about 3D element selection as I have not found a working workflow for my problem yet.
For contact definition, I need to select tetra elements in a defined region of my model. My intended workflow is to export those surface sections from CAD and select the elements in those areas only. Element sets will be created with those elements and used in contact definition.
Until now I was only able to select those 3D elements either manually (painfully slow) or with "by plane". I have tried to select "by geometry" but have not got any working results.
Other workflows would be acceptable too of course.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Best Answer
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Hi,
Can you share an image of which elements are you trying to select for contact. That might help us to give you better solution.
On top of my mind i have 2 ways.
1) Firstly have you tried Contact browser. (Tools-Contact Browser)
You done need to create manual contacts, it automatically does all that for you.
2) For selecting elements from surfaces, may be create Faces (Tools-faces) for the components. And then you can select element-->by geom-->surfaces (this will select the 2d face elements). Then perhaps you can do elems-->by adjacent. This will give you 3d elements selection.
These are just two quick things I thought might solve your issue. Once you share image it might be more clear picture.
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Altair EmployeeAnswers
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Hi,
Can you share an image of which elements are you trying to select for contact. That might help us to give you better solution.
On top of my mind i have 2 ways.
1) Firstly have you tried Contact browser. (Tools-Contact Browser)
You done need to create manual contacts, it automatically does all that for you.
2) For selecting elements from surfaces, may be create Faces (Tools-faces) for the components. And then you can select element-->by geom-->surfaces (this will select the 2d face elements). Then perhaps you can do elems-->by adjacent. This will give you 3d elements selection.
These are just two quick things I thought might solve your issue. Once you share image it might be more clear picture.
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Thank you for your quick reply.
I have tried out the second workflow you mentioned, which makes things a lot easier already. It would be even better if I could just directly select 3D elements with reference geometry generated in CAD.If anyone has a better workflow, I would be greatly interested in other solutions. For now, I can get my model done.
Thank you for your help!
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Glad to be of help!
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