I often want to run a simulation and then convert the result of the simulation (a deformed mesh in a .odb file) to a geometry so it can be used for a subsequent simulation. To do this, it's necessary to associate a geometry with the deformed mesh. There is a plug-in by Dassault Systemes which does this conversion. I've also written my own plugin to do the conversion, and it's a bit more robust than the plug-in provided by Abaqus. However, both plug-ins often fail. I'm trying to understand why these failures happen. I haven't been able to track down the exact reason for these failures, but I have two hypothesis:
- The deformed mesh produced by an Abaqus simulation might be non-manifold (i.e., not define a closed geometry).
- The finite precision of floating point representation is causing a deformed mesh to seem non-manifold.
Does anyone know why mesh to geometry conversion fails so often? Do people think that either of my hypothesis are true?
