48.2.5 Specifying a particular side or end of a region

When you create a surface definition from a shell or wire, you must specify which side of the part you want to include in the surface definition. When you are selecting sides from a shell, ABAQUS/CAE uses different colored faces to indicate the two sides of the shell and prompts you to select the color corresponding to the side that you want to select. In contrast, when you are selecting sides of a wire, ABAQUS/CAE uses different colored arrowheads to indicate the two sides of the part described as follows:

Selecting sides from a shell

In Figure 48–1 ABAQUS/CAE displays the interior of the cone in purple and the exterior of the cone in brown. Therefore, to select the interior of the cone, you would click Purple in the prompt area; to select the exterior, you would click Brown (see Figure 48–2).

Figure 48–1 Colors indicate the side of a shell.

Figure 48–2 Select the side of the surface.

ABAQUS/CAE displays the default side in brown. You can click Both Sides to create a surface that contains both sides. Double-sided surfaces are used only in contact interactions using three-dimensional shells, membranes, and rigid bodies in an ABAQUS/Explicit analysis.

If you select more than one region of a shell for which you must specify a side, ABAQUS/CAE displays both sides of the selected surfaces using the two different colors. For example, the user selected the upper and lower surfaces of the part shown in Figure 48–3, and ABAQUS/CAE colored both sides of the two surfaces.

Figure 48–3 ABAQUS/CAE colors both sides of the surfaces.

Figure 48–4 Select the side of the surface of all the selected regions.

In this example if you click Purple in the prompt area, the interior sides of the part are selected. If you click Brown, the exterior sides are selected.

The Flip a surface option in the prompt area allows you to switch the position of the colored sides for one or more of the selected regions. For example, in Figure 48–5 the top surface was flipped; and the purple side now appears on the exterior. If you clicked Purple in the prompt area, ABAQUS/CAE selects both the interior side of the lower surface and the exterior side of the upper surface.

Figure 48–5 Flipping a surface.

If you click Both Sides, ABAQUS/CAE selects both sides of all selected faces regardless of any surfaces that you previously flipped.

If you subsequently select a surface from the Model Tree, ABAQUS/CAE always highlights the surface in brown in the current viewport regardless of the color choice you made when creating the surface.

Selecting sides from a wire

If you are selecting a surface of a three-dimensional wire part instance, ABAQUS/CAE displays the wire in red along with the arrowheads shown in Figure 48–6.

Figure 48–6 Arrows indicate the ends of a three-dimensional wire.

Figure 48–7 Select the end or the circumference of the surface.

You can select the end with the magenta arrowhead, the end with the yellow arrowhead, or the circumferential surface of the part, which is indicated by the red wire. If the wire part is two-dimensional, you can select either the top or the bottom surface of the part as shown in Figure 48–8.

Figure 48–8 Arrows indicate the top and bottom surface of a two-dimensional wire.

If the part is an axisymmetric shell, you can select either the inside or the outside surface of the part.

Figure 48–9 Arrows indicate the inside and the outside of an axisymmetric shell.

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