Prior to solving for results, plates needs to be meshed. SkyCiv’s plate mesher is able to divide a plate into structured or unstructured shell elements.

 Subscribe to our YouTube ChannelThe shell elements used to divide the plate include both a membrane and bending component to the element.

To specify a plate mesh in SkyCiv Structural 3D simply provide inputs for:

• Plate Selection – Select the plate(s) to be meshed. Use commas to separate plate numbers, a hyphen to select all plate numbers within a range, or click the ‘Select All’ button.
• Type of Elements – The type of shell element to divide the plate – this is either structured quadrilaterals or quadrilaterals
• Base and Height Divisions – Tell the mesher how many divisions over the length and width of plate you want to make when dividing plate into its elements – only available when using ‘structured quadrilaterals’
• Meshing Method – Choose from Automatic, Delaunay, Frontal, and Adaptive meshing methods – only available when using ‘quadrilaterals’
• Granularity – Choose from 5 levels of fineness. 1 represents a very course setting, and 5 represents very fine – only available when using ‘quadrilaterals’
• Physical Size – use this instead of the above granularity slider

Example

To learn how to create a plate, check out the previous article about how to model plates in Structural 3D.

1) To mesh your plate, click the ‘Mesh’ button at the top right corner inside the ‘Plate’ menu. Alternatively, right click the plate and hit Mesh.

2) In the pop up menu, specify Plate 1 as the ‘Plate ID’ (you can comma separate or “all” for all plates). Select ‘Triangular’, ‘Automatic’, and ‘3’ for this example. Try each selection and method for yourself and preview until you are happy with the subsequent mesh. Once you’re happy click Mesh to commit.

 

3) The plate has successfully been meshed. Follow the Example in Pressures to learn how to apply a pressure load to a plate.

Plate Cutouts

Users can also cut holes out of their plates using the Plate Cutout function. To cut out a hole from a plate, follow these steps:

Add nodes to your plate to position the hole. Make ensure the nodes close a shape (do not have them on the plate edges) and that they do not overlap another hole.

Right click the plate and click Plate Hole. Then enter node IDs (clockwise or anti-clockwise). It is

Once submitted, the hole should be visible in the model and also be available to delete from the existing hole list.

After meshing the plate, the hole should still exist:

 

Not Happy with your Mesh?

You can simply right click the plate and hit Mesh again and try different mesh settings. The plate pressures and original attributes will remain in-tact.