

The FEM Workbench has developed simple communication interfaces to use Gmsh and Netgen directly inside FreeCAD. These programs can be used independently of FreeCAD, and typically have many options to control the meshing algorithms, element size, and boundary conditions.
CREO SKETCH TO GMSH SOFTWARE
Meshing software operates on solid bodies that can be in different formats, like Step and Brep. Now, both Netgen and Gmsh should be installed before they can be used by the FEM Workbench.

Previously, Netgen was included with FreeCAD and could be used immediately. If you'd like to have more control of the created mesh (use only quadrilaterals, precise element number and size, variable resolution of the mesh, etc.), you should use these programs externally, produce a mesh file in a supported format (.
CREO SKETCH TO GMSH FULL
The Gmsh and Netgen tools are convenience tools to quickly mesh a body, and thus don't expose the full capabilities of these programs they normally create triangular meshes, which may not be ideal for some types of analysis. inp, and then imported into FreeCAD (all quadrangles) (1) Solid body created with PartDesign (2) mesh produced by the Gmsh tool inside the FEM Workbench (all triangles) and (3) mesh produced externally by Gmsh, exported to Abaqus format. The FEM Workbench calls the external tool Gmsh to obtain a mesh from a solid body created with any workbench in FreeCAD it can also import a mesh created externally Notice that a mesh used for FEA is different from a mesh created or imported from the Mesh Workbench. In general, any workbench that generates solid objects, like the Arch Workbench, can be used as the basis from which to create meshes. The Gmsh and Netgen tools support meshing bodies created with the Part Workbench and PartDesign Workbench, as well as simple copies of those solids. Manually creating the mesh through Python scripting.In particular, Gmsh and Netgen can be used by themselves outside of FreeCAD to mesh solid bodies like Step files. Importing a mesh from another program.The Netgen tool from the graphical user interface.The Gmsh tool from the graphical user interface.There are different possibilities to set up a mesh in the FEM Workbench: A balance between the size of the mesh, and computation time and accuracy of results is an important characteristic of a well defined finite element analysis.

The more refined the mesh is, the more accurate the numerical results will be, but also the computation time will be larger. 6.14 Volume, 13 node pyramid, pyra13 (quadratic)įinite element analysis (FEA) is performed on a mesh composed of multiple triangular and quadrilateral finite elements that subdivide an original body.6.13 Volume, 5 node pyramid, pyra5 (linear).6.12 Volume, 15 node pentahedron, penta15 (quadratic).6.11 Volume, 6 node pentahedron, penta6 (linear).6.10 Volume, 20 node hexahedron, hexa20 (quadratic).6.9 Volume, 8 node hexahedron, hexa8 (linear).6.8 Volume, 10 node tetrahedron, tetra10 (quadratic).6.7 Volume, 4 node tetrahedron, tetra4 (linear).6.6 Shell, 8 node quadrangle, quad8 (quadratic).6.5 Shell, 4 node quadrangle, quad4 (linear).

