SimLab Meshing Issue – Disconnected Mesh & System Performance | Electric Motor Model

Question

Dear Altair Support Team,

I am currently working on a meshing project in Altair SimLab and facing several issues. I would appreciate your guidance on how to resolve them.

SOFTWARE & WORKFLOW

* CAD model created in PTC Creo, exported as .stp file
* Imported into Altair SimLab for meshing
* Model consists of individual parts of an electric motor, including windings and potting material (Vergussmaterial), Rotor, stator etc.

PROBLEM 1: DISCONNECTED SURFACE MESH (OVERLAPPING SURFACES)

I created a 2D surface mesh for each individual part separately. However, the mesh elements are not connected to each other at the interfaces, resulting in overlapping surfaces between parts.

Approaches I already tried (all caused the system to hang):

* Boolean operator in SimLab to combine the parts before meshing → system hangs
* Selecting all parts at once and meshing them together and creating matching mesh→ system hangs
* Applying Boolean operator to combine parts after Meshing → system hangs

Question: What is the recommended workflow in SimLab to create a connected mesh across multiple parts, especially for complex geometries with windings and potting material?

PROBLEM 2: SYSTEM PERFORMANCE / RAM & CPU UTILIZATION

My computer has 20 cores, and I have already increased the number of cores in SimLab Preferences. However, the system still freezes during meshing operations.

Question: Are there additional settings or configurations in SimLab to ensure full utilization of available RAM and CPU resources? Are there any recommended mesh size or model simplification strategies for complex motor models?

Marc_21384 · Answer

Hello,

This is how I would approach it:

* Translate to Parasolid when importing the CAD. If you have the step, when importing it will give you the option to translate directly or you can do it through translate when importing as shown:

2. First try and identify any overlapping surfaces or if there's a gap. Fix any of these problems. Snapshot of the model I'm using as reference

3. Start connecting a few parts between them. Do this iteratively until you connected all or find a problem:

4. When  you find a problem connecting you'll know which bodies are giving problems. For example here:

5. Unmerge and fix the problem. In this case they are overlapping. So, just boolean subtract, for example:

6. Boolean join the bodies again:

7. Now you can mesh and this will make sure you have shared nodes between the surfaces. After meshing, select the bodies, right click and unmerge to get the original assembly:

Hope this helps!

Kind regards,

Marc

s_gupta_2608 · Answer

Dear Marc,

Please find attached some screenshots of my model to give you a better understanding of the geometry:

* Windings of the electric motor

* Windings with epoxy (potting) material / section view

The main challenge I am facing is connecting the winding geometry with the surrounding epoxy material. Due to the complex shape of the windings, it is difficult to create a proper connected mesh between these two components.

Could you advise on the best approach to handle this interface between the windings and the epoxy material using the Boolean tool with connected bodies, as you suggested?

Thank you very much for your support.

Best regards

Marc_21384 · Answer

Hello,

Is it possible to add some screenshots of your model? To have a better understanding. When working with complex assemblies. What you can do is use the boolean tool with connected bodies enabled and start joining by section, don't select all at the same time.

Kind regards,

Marc