17.6.4 How are seeds and other attributes affected by partitioning?

Seed distributions along edges you have seeded may change during the partitioning process; ABAQUS/CAE redistributes the seeds to accommodate any new vertices created by partitioning. For example, the left and right edges of the part instance in Figure 17–27 are seeded with seven elements per edge.

Figure 17–27 The left and right edges each have seven elements.

If you create a partition that splits the part instance into two regions, new vertices are created at the midpoints of both edges. In Figure 17–28 you can see how ABAQUS/CAE added seeds at the new vertices so that nodes will exist at the corners of each region. ABAQUS/CAE also redistributed the existing seeds to eliminate any overly small elements created by the new partition. However, this redistribution can result in seeds that are not aligned. The top region has one seed more on the left side than it does on the right, and the reverse is true for the bottom region.

Figure 17–28 Redistribution of seeds.

In this example you could change the number of elements along the right and left edges to an even number to ensure that the seeds align after partitioning.

Any other mesh attributes, such as element shape or element type, that you have applied are applied automatically to each new region that you create with a partition. However, once you have created the different regions, you can assign different mesh attributes to each region.