Many of the problems associated with importing a complex solid part into ABAQUS/CAE can be alleviated if you recognize what you want as an end product: a finite element mesh of the parts to be analyzed using ABAQUS/Standard or ABAQUS/Explicit.

A small feature in the imported part will result in a fine mesh in the area of the detail. The fine mesh will influence the mesh in adjacent regions and may dominate the time taken to perform the analysis. If you are not interested in analyzing the feature, you should use the CAD system to remove the detail from the part before you import the part into ABAQUS/CAE. Removing small features may solve precision errors in the imported part. Examples of small features include:

Simplifying a solid part will increase your chances of successfully importing it into ABAQUS/CAE. You must decide the level of detail that will produce meaningful results from the analysis.

Finally, you should consider the type of mesh required by the analysis. If you plan to mesh the part with triangular or tetrahedral elements or with quadrilateral elements generated by the advancing front algorithm, you can use the Virtual Topology toolset in the Mesh module to remove small details from the part instance before you generate the mesh. For more information, see Chapter 49, “The Virtual Topology toolset.”