Trimming mesh primitives with cutting planes

For the following types of mesh primitives, you can use cutting planes to trim the mesh primitive to the exact shape that you need for the analysis:

• Box Surface

• Sphere

• ISO Mesh Primitive (ISO3744)

For Box Surface and Sphere mesh primitives, you can define up to three cutting planes. For ISO Power (ISO3744) mesh primitives, you can define a single cutting plane.

Using cutting planes to trim mesh primitives

You can use cutting planes to trim the mesh primitive to the exact shape that you need for the analysis. For example, you can use one or more cutting planes to trim the default shape of a Box Surface mesh primitive:

Box Surface mesh primitive	Box Surface mesh primitive trimmed by an XY cutting plane	Box Surface mesh primitive trimmed by XY and YZ cutting planes	Box surface mesh primitive trimmed by XY, YZ, and ZX cutting planes

You can use cutting planes to trim the default shape of Sphere mesh primitives.

Sphere mesh primitive	Sphere mesh primitive trimmed by XY cutting plane

You can use cutting planes to trim the default shape of ISO Power (ISO3744) mesh primitives. Here, the cutting plane corresponds to a symmetry plane.

ISO Power (ISO3744) mesh primitive	ZX cutting plane on an ISO Power (ISO3744) mesh primitive	ISO Power 3744 mesh primitive trimmed by a ZX cutting plane

Controlling the location of the cutting plane

The default location of the cutting plane depends upon the type of mesh primitive. For certain mesh primitives, you can define an offset value to change the default location of the cutting plane.

	Box Surface	Sphere	ISO
Default location of cutting plane	The cutting plane always passes through the origin of the coordinate system.	The default location of the cutting plane depends on whether you define a single or multiple cutting planes.Single cutting plane: The cutting plane passes through the origin of the coordinate system.Multiple cutting planes: The cutting planes pass through the center of the sphere. The software issues an alert to inform you of this when you define the second cutting plane.	The cutting plane always passes through the center of the primitive.
Offset	The software offsets the center of the box with respect to the origin of the coordinate system by the value you specify.	The software offsets the center of box with respect to the origin of the coordinate system by the value you specify.	N/AYou cannot define an offset value for ISO mesh primitives.

For Box Surface mesh primitive with one or more cutting planes and a Sphere mesh primitive with a single cutting plane, to move the cutting plane to a different location on the mesh primitive, you can do one of the following:

• Click the origin of the plane's coordinate system and drag it to a new location.

• Enter an offset value in the Distance box on-screen.

After you position the plane, you must select the vector to define the direction in which the software keeps the elements. You can click Reverse Direction to flip the vector's direction.

The following graphics show how you can use an offset cutting plane to trim a Sphere mesh primitive. Notice the difference in the resulting mesh depending on the direction in which you keep the elements.

Generating a mesh on the cutting plane

When you define a cutting plane, you can also specify whether to generate a mesh on the cutting plane. For example, if you select the XY Plane check box, you can also select the Mesh XY Cutting Plane check box to generate a mesh on the XY plane. If you have the software create a mesh the cutting plane, the nodes along the edge where the cutting plane intersects the mesh primitive are shared.

Box surface mesh primitive trimmed by XY, YZ, and ZX cutting planes	Box surface mesh primitive trimmed by XY, YZ, and ZX cutting planes and a mesh generated on the ZX cutting plane

Where do I find it?

Application	Pre/Post
Prerequisites	A FEM file as the work part and displayed partSimcenter Nastran or Simcenter 3D Acoustics BEM as the specified solver
Command Finder	Box Surface Mesh Primitive ISO Power (ISO3744) Mesh Primitive Sphere Mesh Primitive

Learn more

Mesh primitives for acoustics and vibro-acoustics analysis

Mesh primitive types for acoustics and vibro-acoustics analysis

ISO Power (ISO3744) Mesh Primitives

Quick links

Command reference

Pre/Post video examples

Bulk Entry Descriptions

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Trimming mesh primitives with cutting planes, Simcenter 3D 2021.1 Series

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