FE Model Creation

Once the idealized block is made the FE model can be created from it. As the idealized model is simplified all remaining components will be represented in the FE model. Plate surfaces such as plates and brackets will become shell elements while stiffeners and pillars will become beam elements and flanges become truss elements.

Apart from being topologically connected the shell elements of the FE model should preferably be four-sided and the corner angles should be within given limits. Also the shell element warping must be within given bounds. Warped elements are normally related to curved surfaces where some triangular elements are typically necessary to describe the plating.

The process involves techniques to reduce shell elements that are narrow compared to the intended element size and to subdivide elements with many node points. The user can in both cases choose if this should be applied and which parameters to use in creating the pre-meshed model. In this way the model can be made to be quite close to the expected final mesh, or it can be less processed leaving more to the following external steps in the process.

The resulting FE model can be represented by a number of objects intended for graphical display. One type holds the shell elements, another beam and trusses, yet another the shell elements that has corner angles outside the given interval.