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1 HEXAHEDRAL-MESHING PREPROCESSOR 3DSHOP

1.1 Introduction 3DShop is an optional program that can be used with the basic version of FLAC 3D. A license for 3DShop can be purchased at an additional cost. Contact Itasca for pricing information. 3DShop is a hexahedral-meshing preprocessor that enables the creation of complex meshes for FLAC 3D. 3DShop can substantially reduce model creation time by uncoupling the model building from the meshing process; the model is built via a menu-driven graphical interface, and then meshed using a fully automatic all-hexahedral mesh generator. 3DShop can be used to assist FLAC 3D model generation for a wide range of geotechnical problems, including intersecting tunnels and shafts, complex excavation shapes, and irregular geologic stratigraphies and structures. For example, an existing three-dimensional geometry can be read into 3DShop from existing CAD models, or a complex model grid can be created from scratch. Meshes produced by 3DShop are exported in a format that can be read directly into FLAC 3D. 3DShop has two components: the 3DShop solid modeler*, and the KUBRIX mesh generator**. The 3DShop modeler component is used rst to create the surface geometry representing the problem domain surfaces. KUBRIX is then used to generate hexahedral zoning automatically, to t within this geometry. Figure 1.1 shows an example after the 3DShop solid-model stage and the KUBRIX mesh stage. * The 3DShop solid modeler is based on 3DShop ModelDesign, which is a copyrighted product of C4W, S.A. ** The KUBRIX mesh generator is a copyrighted product of Simulation Works, Inc. KUBRIX is a registered trademark of Simulation Works, Inc.

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Figure 1.1

3DShop solid model (upper gure) and KUBRIX hexahedral mesh (lower gure) for intersecting circular and horseshoe tunnels

The 3DShop solid modeler is capable of handling non-manifold surfaces (i.e., closed surfaces containing internal surfaces). Non-manifold surfaces are common in geotechnical applications (e.g., sequential excavations in tunnel construction). The KUBRIX component features the capability of dening coinciding nodes at material boundaries, which facilitates the creation of interfaces in FLAC 3D. This chapter is a users guide for operating 3DShop. The installation and licensing instructions for the program are given in Section 1.2. The recommended procedure to use 3DShop to build a model for FLAC 3D is outlined in Section 1.3. Section 1.4 provides instructions to get you started using 3DShop. General information and tips on applying 3DShop are given in Section 1.5, and simple example applications of 3DShop are provided in Section 1.6 as a guide to users.

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1.2 Installation and Licensing of 3DShop 1.2.1 Installation 3DShop is installed in Windows from the Itasca CD-ROM using standard Windows procedures. Insert the Itasca CD in the appropriate drive. If the autorun feature for the CD drive is enabled, a menu providing options for using the CD will appear automatically. If this menu does not appear, type [cd drive]:\start.exe at the command line ( START > RUN in Windows) to access the CD-ROM menu. The option to install 3DShop may be selected from this menu. To install 3DShop, follow the installation procedure for FLAC 3D. Select the 3DShop box in the Select Components dialog to install 3DShop on your computer. Note that 3DShop can be installed separately from FLAC 3D if you wish to run FLAC 3D and 3DShop on different computers. When 3DShop is installed, the electronic version of this chapter will be made available via the 3DSHOP Manual shortcut in the Itasca group on the Start menu. All electronic volumes of the FLAC 3D manual (including the 3DShop manual) are PDF les that require the Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to be viewed. The software is freely available from Adobe Systems Incorporated (http://www.adobe.com). The 3DShop package can be uninstalled via the Add/Remove Programs icon in the Windows Control Panel. 1.2.2 Licensing To purchase this option, or to request a trial license, please contact your local Itasca ofce or agent. CAUTION: The 3DShop option is not activated through the FLAC 3D hardware key; it is node-locked to a specic computer. It is important to note that once 3DShop has been installed on a specic computer, it can only be operated from that computer.

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1.3 FLAC 3D Model Creation with 3DShop To build a model for FLAC 3D using 3DShop, the following procedure is recommended: 1. Reading an Existing Geometry If an STL, DXF or VRML description of the geometry is available, read it into 3DShop. We recommend reading data in the STL or VRML formats, as there are many types of DXF that are not compatible with 3DShop. Often, an imported geometry contains extraneous entities that are irrelevant to mesh generation. Remove extraneous data and, in order to ensure precision, make sure that your model is as centered as possible around the (0, 0, 0) coordinate. An imported STL, DXF or VRML le is not a geometrical entity. You cannot cut or trim these entities, nor use them in any Boolean operation. It is a triangular mesh entity, the vertices of which can be used in creating new geometrical entities. 2. Simplifying the Geometry An imported geometry may be very complex, and not closed. Using it directly may result is a very large mesh. It is recommended that you recreate a new and simplied geometry in which details unimportant to mesh generation have been removed. Create a simplied geometry from scratch, or using the points of the imported geometry as a reference. 3. Creating a Model There are two approaches to solid modeling: surface-based and solid-based. In the surface-based approach, you create points, or use existing points, to create Edges that can be line segments, circular arcs or other smooth curves such as Bzier or B-spline curves. You can extrude an Edge along another Edge to create a Face. A collection of Edges is called a Wire. A collection of Faces that are sewn together is called a Shell. You can extrude a Wire along another Wire to create a Shell. A Shell can be open or closed. You can create a closed Shell by sewing several open Shells together. In the solid-based approach, you use ready-made closed Shells called Primitives. Primitives can be parallelepipeds, cylinders, spheres, cone sections, etc. You can use Boolean operations to subtract, add or intersect Primitives and closed Shells, in order to create a more complex closed Shell. Because of some limitations in the solid modeling library used in 3DShop, we do not recommend extensive use of Boolean operations, especially when two Faces in two different Solids are tangent. 4. Final Checks of the Model Once a model is complete, it should be dissociated into faces and checked with the Clean function to remove all double Faces. Furthermore, the model itself should contain no free edges; in other words, it should be watertight. You can check for free edges using the Free boundaries function in the Analysis menu item. 5. Model Discretization The faces of a solid model should be discretized into triangles prior to automatic meshing. You can specify several parameters that control how closely triangles approximate the geometry. Use the Discretize function to create a discretized

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surface. The discretized surface must be saved as an STL le prior to hexahedral mesh generation. 6. Mesh Generation To generate an all-hexahedral mesh, you should read a closed STL le, and select the automatic hexahedral mesh generation function. A number of parameters can be set in this function to control the density and size distribution of the resulting mesh. The mesh is automatically saved as a .ac3d and a .wrl le. A .ac3d le can be directly read into FLAC 3D by using the IMPGRID command. A .wrl le can be read into 3DShop to visually examine the resulting mesh.

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1.4 Getting Started The default installation procedure creates a C4W group with a 3DSHOP shortcut that can be used to start the code. To start 3DShop, click on the 3DSHOP button. The 3DShop window opens.* The 3DShop graphical user interface is composed of two panels. On the left is the Objects Explorer panel, which is similar to the Windows Explorer.** On the right is the Graphic Window, in which geometrical entities listed in the Objects Explorer are displayed. Maximize the Graphic Window by clicking on the Maximize icon at the top-right corner of the newly created window. The 3DShop window is shown in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2

The 3DShop window

In order to open a new document to start a new model in 3DShop, select the File/New menu item. A blank document opens. Your current model appears as a folder Document in the Objects Explorer panel with the name of the model in brackets. Clicking on the + sign to the left of each entry in * If at start-up a dialog box inquiring about licenses of certain components of 3DShop appears, click on the button marked Cancel . If the dialog box inquires about a license for 3DShop itself, your license is no longer valid. Copy and paste the character string appearing in the dialog box into an email message and send this message to Itasca to renew the license see Section 1.2.2. ** If the Objects Explorer window is not displayed on start-up, select Display/Objects Explorer to open the panel.

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the Objects Explorer opens its contents. You can see an entity entitled Document [Document 1]. Clicking on the + sign to the left of Document opens a tree structure containing two entries: 2D World and 3D World. To open the toolbars that are most used in 3DShop, right-click in the toolbar area at the top of the 3DShop window below the menu bar. Alternatively, you can select Display/Toolbars. The Toolbars dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 1.3. Click the Views, Construction, Objects, and 3dprim entries, and click on the Close button to open these toolbars. The descriptions of these menu items are given in Section 1.5.1.

Figure 1.3

3DShop toolbars

It is important to be familiar with the following features before creating models in 3DShop. 1.4.1 Online Help and Icons Online help is available to access the operation instructions of 3DShop through the Help menu item. In addition, by moving the cursor over any icon, its function is shown in a bubble. 1.4.2 Importing External Geometries and File Formats You can Open or Insert VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language), STL (StereoLythigraphy), and DXF (Data Exchange Format) les in 3DShop. VRML les are in ASCII, and are mainly used to show solid models on the World Wide Web. Multiple mesh entities can exist in a VRML le, and entities can each have their own color and transparency. STL les are used in mechanical engineering and Computer-Aided Design (CAD) as a Rapid Prototyping le format, and have emerged as a de facto, albeit awkward, standard for the representation of triangulated surfaces. Some CAD systems refuse to produce STL les of non-manifold geometries (solids containing internal surfaces), but most allow it. An STL le can contain only one mesh entity.

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DXF les are ASCII les used by AutoCad. There are several types of DXF, and not all of them are readable by 3DShop. However, the most common types are readable. A DXF le can contain multiple Mesh entities. After reading a DXF le, the entities appear in the Objects Explorer as Mesh of Triangles. This entity is not immediately recognized as a mesh entity. To transform it into a mesh entity, select it, and select Construction/Sew to turn it into a GL Triangle, which is the internal representation of surface meshes in 3DShop. 1.4.3 Selecting Entities To perform an operation on an object, it must rst be selected. You can select an entity by leftclicking on it in either the Objects Explorer or the Graphic Window. When an entity is selected, its color changes to orange. Right-clicking on an entity lets you query properties and change the display mode or color and transparency of the entity. Use <Ctrl-C> followed by <Ctrl-V> to copy and paste entities, either in the same document or between several components, either in the Objects Explorer or the Graphic Window. As in many Windows applications, in the Objects Explorer, you can select a range of components by holding down the <Shift> key. Using the <Ctrl> key instead of <Shift> enables you to select multiple noncontiguous components. <Ctrl-A> lets you select all entities in your model. A useful selection tool is Edit/Reverse the Selection, which allows you to select the opposite of the selected item. 1.4.4 Keeping Track of Model Development Every operation is recorded, and can be undone and redone with the Edit/Undo and Redo menu items. You can also use <Ctrl-Z> to undo an operation, and <Ctrl-Y> to redo one. You can undo as many steps as you want, as long as the undo stack is long enough. You can set the length of the undo stack in File/Preferences. You can also use several Undos to go to a past state, copy something, Redo everything back to the present state, and paste those entities in your document. Please note that hiding, displaying, changing view angles, etc., are not operations, and therefore cannot be undone. If you want the redo/undo stack to be saved in your .opn les, check File/Preferences, put a check mark next to Save Redo/Undo stack , and set the number of lines to 1000 or more. 1.4.5 Viewing and Changing Displays Use the arrow keys to pan any view, and use your mouse wheel to zoom in at any time, even in the midst of using any of the geometry construction tools. If you have a numerical keypad, or after activating <Num Lock> on your keyboard, you can rotate the view by increments of 5 degrees in all directions with the numerical keypad arrows. In the Graphic Window, the X, Y and Z directions are shown with a small coordinate system symbol colored in Red, Green and Blue representing X, Y and Z (RGB = XYZ).

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If you want to see through surfaces, and select objects behind surfaces, you can right-click on the surfaces, select Display mode, check Curves , and uncheck everything else. You can also check Wireframe instead of Curves . Both of these transparent modes allow you to reach through a surface to select an object behind it. You can also see through surfaces by right-clicking, selecting Attributes, and using the cursor. But you will not be able to select an object behind a transparent surface.
Transparency

If curves look jagged, it is due to a default representational setting, and has no bearing on accuracy. You can rene the representation of curves by selecting File/Preferences and then Display, setting the solid deection value to approximately 1/100th of the smallest feature size in the model, and the minimum number of curve points to at least 30. Clicking the XY , YZ , and XZ icons sets the view to the corresponding points of view. Clicking the Fit icon, or right-clicking on the background and selecting Fit , maximizes the view to t the screen. You can permanently choose the Display mode of objects in 3DShop, in File/Preferences in the 3D View dialog in the Display Mode section. Please note that the new display mode will apply to objects that will be created after changing the Preferences. If you want the changes to take effect immediately (and for all existing objects) after changing the Preferences, select everything in the model, delete everything, then type <Ctrl-Z> to restore deleted entities. All objects will be restored and displayed in accordance with the new preferences. 1.4.6 Operations on Geometric Entities Aside from the Boolean operations that are reserved for closed Shells, other entities such as Edges, Wires, Faces and Shells can be cut and trimmed by Edges and Wires. Once a point of view is chosen, any Edge or Wire can be used as a knife to slice an object in the direction of sight. Edges, Wires, Faces and Shells can also be sewn together to create more complex Wires and Shells. Any entity can also be rotated, translated, mirrored, relocated and distorted. Some operations involve using a Shell, and cannot be performed with a Face. To turn a Face into a Shell, simply select it, and select Construction/Sew. 1.4.7 Saving Your Work To avoid creating damaged les, save often, under different lenames, and at regular time intervals. Make sure to save your work as .opn les. These les also store the sequence of operations (undo/redo stack) used up to the point of saving, if Save Redo/Undo Stack is checked in Preferences. If at a later date you decide to read a saved le, you can use the saved Redo and Undo stack to navigate the sequence of operations. Please be aware that sometimes a save operation may result in the loss of the Redo/Undo stack. Note that if you save a surface mesh as an STL le, it will be saved as one mesh entity. When you save your model as an STL le, any mesh entity is saved as is, and any Shell or Face is discretized by default and saved. All entities are saved as a single mesh entity. So, be aware that saving your

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work as an STL le degrades it. You should always save your work in the default .opn le format; save it as an STL le only prior to hexahedral mesh generation. When you use Applications/3Dmesh and select the Discretize option, you control the triangulation of surfaces, and translate your Shells and Faces into a mesh entity, which you then save as an STL le. 1.4.8 Hexahedral Mesh Generation Hexahedral meshing always produces 2 les: one with the extension .ac3d, which is directly readable in FLAC 3D ; and another with the extension .wrl, which is a VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) le readable in 3DShop. After generating a mesh, you can read the .wrl le into 3DShop to visually evaluate the resulting mesh. To choose hexahedral meshing parameters, take the following steps: 1. Read in the STL le. Select Applications/Kubrix/Hexahedral Meshing to open the Hexahedral Meshing dialog. 2. Click on the
Default

button to reset all parameters to their default values.

3. Click on Compute to launch the computation. When the computation is nished, the DOS window remains open. 4. Read the .wrl le into 3DShop, and verify that the block decomposition represents a reasonable decomposition of your model into blocks. Please note that this is the coarsest possible mesh produced by KUBRIX, and represents only the blocks of the mesh. 5. In 3DShop, close the .wrl le, click on the window containing the STL le, and open the Hexahedral Meshing dialog again. 6. Enter a value for the Maximum allowable edge length equal to approximately 1/5 of what is reported as the Maximum edge length in the KUBRIX screen output, and click Compute . 7. Verify that the resulting .wrl le is approaching the mesh densities expected. 8. Close the .wrl le, activate the STL window, and open the Hexahedral Meshing dialog. 9. To further limit the maximum size of the elements, note the maximum edge length reported in the screen output, and cut the maximum size to a third or less, if needed. 10. To improve the distribution of gridpoints throughout the mesh, set the Number of surface smoothing iterations to a higher number. Please note that, in some cases, fewer iterations result in a better mesh. 11. To increase the minimum number of elements used to capture details such as wall thickness, distances between consecutive walls, gap diameters, etc., set Resolution to 2 or more.

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12. To make sure that the mesh follows the surface of the geometry more closely, look for the Maximum edge offset reported in the screen output, and set the Maximum allowed distance between the mesh surface and the input surface to a third of what was reported in the output. 13. To better capture surface dihedral angles (wedges) and avoid smoothing over faint but important surface features, use a cut angle of 60 or less. Please note that small cut angles force KUBRIX to attempt to mesh every surface detail, including those caused by bad or noisy triangulation. As a result, block decomposition may be slow or produce a very large mesh. In some cases, the automatic block decomposition may not converge. 14. To better control mesh size near walls without dramatically increasing the total number of elements in the mesh, add -wallsize <size> in the New Keywords eld. In order to avoid dramatic mesh density changes near walls, please choose a value of <size> no smaller than roughly half the Maximum allowable edge length. 15. To force meshing to follow a prescribed block decomposition, to concentrate meshes around a particular feature, or to create a layer of vertices along a given line or surface, add internal surfaces to the input. Just make sure that you do not create any free edges. 16. To create a fully structured mesh where each element and each node is dened by a unique i, j, k -index, select 3 as the Structure of the mesh. Please note that the resulting nodes are elements numbered in increasing i -, then increasing j - and, nally, increasing k -order. You can experiment with various mesh structures by selecting values of -struct ranging from 0 to 4. Please note that some meshes look much better as a structured mesh. 17. To minimize aspect ratios, it is best, in general, to start by selecting a smaller Maximum allowable edge length and increasing the Number of surface smoothing iterations. Use aspect ratio control as a last resort to get rid of stubbornly high aspect ratios. In the screen output, Maximum aspect ratio shows the highest aspect ratio. Set Maximum allowed aspect ratio to a third of what was reported and check the result.

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1.5 Using 3DShop 1.5.1 Useful Tools and Functions in 3DShop The following tools are most useful in creating 3DShop models for FLAC 3D. The Objects menu item contains geometrical transformation operations such as Rotation and Translation. The Construction menu item contains tools to create lines, as well as the Sew and Cut tools, which can be used on every geometrical entity. The Analysis menu item contains two important functions: Free Boundaries detects and extracts the free edges of Faces and Shells; the Measures function can be used to nd coordinates and distances. The Applications menu item contains several important functions: The Mesh menu item contains the following functions. Discretize discretizes a collection of Faces and Shells into a collection of triangles. Extraction detects and extracts free and multiple edges of triangular mesh entities. It is useful for checking whether an imported geometry is closed. The Clean function removes all double Faces and double Edges in a selection; it is used to ensure that no double Faces remain in the geometry prior to discretization and nal mesh generation. The Topographic Surface function helps you create a surface based on level lines. The 3Dprim menu item contains all of the Primitives. The 3Dsolid menu item contains all of the Boolean operations. In particular, the Split 2 solids operation can be used to compute all of the Shells resulting from the intersection, subtraction and addition of two closed Shells. Another useful tool is the Split by half space operation, which cuts a closed Shell in two with an open Shell. The 3Dsolid menu item also contains the Extrusion function, which works with an extrusion Wire. An extruded Wire is a Shell, and an extruded Shell is a closed Shell. The 3Dsurf menu item contains all of the operations needed to create complex Shells, starting from Points and Curves. In particular, the Shell menu item contains the Cap planar holes function, which creates a closed Shell. The OpenScripting menu item runs scripts. In particular, select ScriptBar to open the Script Editor dialog box. Once in the Script Editor, choose the Colorize script to colorize all selected objects in distinct colors.

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1.5.2 Modeling Tips 1.5.2.1 Construction Operations To cancel any ongoing operations, press the <Esc> or <Enter> key. When a Sew operation fails, try using a smaller Tolerance. When adding several adjacent closed Shells to create one closed Shell, use the Boolean operation Applications/3dsolid/Add, not Sew. Sew is only used for open Shells. When trying to Add two adjacent closed shells, the operation may fail if the two Shells do not clearly touch, or if the interface is made of two different surfaces. If Add fails, dissociate each shell into faces, trim common faces, and reassemble (Sew) the faces into a closed Shell. In Extrusion operations, the direction of the extrusion depends on the orientation of the edge or wire along which the extrusion is performed. To change the direction of a Wire or Edge, use Objects/Reverse. 1.5.2.2 Creating Line Segments In 3DShop, there are two ways to create a line segment. The Construction/line tool creates a line between two existing points. The Construction/Polyline tool allows you to either select existing points or enter the exact coordinates of new points. If after the creation of a Polyline an errant line follows your cursor, simply right-click in the Graphic Window to get rid of it. To create a perfectly straight line segment passing through a given point, open Construction/ Polyline, click on the point, and hold down the <x>, <y> or <z> key while you drag the mouse in any direction. This will create a straight line along the x -, y -, or z-direction. 1.5.2.3 Colorizing Entities It is sometimes difcult to distinguish one entity from another if all are shown with the same color. To automatically colorize a group of entities, select them and click on the Colorize icon or select Objects/Colorize. 1.5.2.4 If Hexahedral Meshing Indicates Free Edges Select Applications/3Dmesh and Discretize , and make sure that all Free Boundaries are removed. If you cannot get rid of Free Boundaries with a reasonable tolerance, make sure that your geometry is indeed closed. If two Shells intersect visually without having been intersected through a geometrical operation, they are not aware of each other, and they are not intersecting for the purpose of solid modeling. Make sure that if 3DShop sets the value of Chord Error in the Discretize dialog box, you do not override it with a smaller value, because this would result in the creation of Free Edges in the STL le.

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1.5.2.5 If the Hexahedral Meshing Does Not Converge If the KUBRIX computation remains stuck at 1 fuzzy-logic iteration, your model may contain double Faces. If your model is a single material object, read the STL le, select the object, and select Applications/3Dmesh and Extraction/Multiple Boundaries. This operation detects boundaries where three or more faces join at one Edge. If this is the case at multiple boundaries, at least one of the faces is doubled, and may need to be deleted manually. In multiple material objects, read in the last .opn le you created prior to discretization. Dissociate your model into its constitutive Faces, and look for double-faces using the Applications/3Dmesh, and select the Clean function. It may sometimes be necessary to remove double Faces manually. If the KUBRIX computation fails to converge during the fuzzy-logic block decomposition stage, try rerunning it with Rene set to 1. This option renes the coarse triangular surface mesh prior to running KUBRIX, and may result in a faster convergence. You can also create a more controllable STL mesh by using Applications/3Dmesh, selecting Regular Meshing, and rerunning KUBRIX. 1.5.2.6 If the Grid Layers are to follow a Prescribed Surface Sometimes it may be useful for internal grid layers to be perfectly horizontal or follow a prescribed surface. To do this, simply add the surface to the model as you would add a wall between two material properties. The resulting mesh will contain two different groups that can be declared as one group when the material properties are set in FLAC 3D. 1.5.2.7 If the Mesh Does Not Capture Certain Dihedral Angles on the Surface Try a cut angle of less than 80 (the default value). (For example, use 60 .) This will force the separation of grid blocks along wedges that have dihedral angles greater than 60 . Please note that if your input surface mesh contains unintended 60 wedge angles as a result of coarse triangulation, these wedges will be meshed. As a result, noisy triangulations may overly constrain the meshing procedure and prevent convergence of the block decomposition. 1.5.2.8 If the Resulting Mesh is Too Coarse Read the KUBRIX screen output and look for the maximum edge length. Rerun KUBRIX using a maximum allowable element edge length equal to a third of what was reported in the KUBRIX output. If the output mesh contains elements that are too coarse near walls, add -wallsize L in the New Keywords eld provided in the Options section of the Hexahedral Meshing dialog box. This ensures that the mesh thickness in the direction perpendicular to walls does not exceed L near the walls. If the output mesh does not depict geometric details such as boreholes and wall thicknesses with enough precision, try a higher mesh Resolution in the Mesh Parameters section of the Hexahedral Meshing dialog box.

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1.5.2.9 Creating an i, j, k-Structured Mesh Sometimes, it is desirable to create a mesh where all elements and vertices can be identied by an (i, j, k) triplet. To create such a mesh, set the Structure of the mesh to 3 in the Mesh Parameters section of the Hexahedral Meshing dialog box.

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1.6 Simple Examples Three simple examples are presented to illustrate the procedure for model building and mesh generation using 3DShop. These examples are taken from the Examples volume. 1.6.1 Bathtub Model In this tutorial, you will learn to create a solid model and mesh of a quarter section of an open pit. The height of the slope is 25 m, and the slope angle is 2 vertical to 1 horizontal, or approximately 63 . See Figure 1.4. This FLAC 3D model is the same as that given in Section 1 in the Examples volume.

Figure 1.4

CAD model of bathtub-shaped open pit

Follow the steps below to create this model using 3DShop. 1. Start 3DShop and, using File/New, open a new document. 2. Using Applications/3dprim, create a Parallelepiped with the dimensions (80, 120, 40).

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3. Right-click on the parallelepiped and, in the Display Mode ..., select the Wireframe representation of the object so you can clearly see the origin and axes (Figure 1.5). Use Objects/Translation to translate the parallelepiped by a vector with the starting point (40, 60, 20) and the ending point (0, 40, 15).

Figure 1.5

Wireframe view of the parallelepiped

4. Using Applications/3dprim, create a cone section with the following dimensions: Radius 1 = 12 Radius 2 = 24.5 Height = 25 Angle = 90 5. In the Objects Explorer, select both Shells and, using Edit/Dissociate, dissociate them into their constitutive faces. The two Shells are deleted and replaced with 11 Faces (6 resulting from the parallelepiped and 5 resulting from the cone section). 6. Faces are not distinguishable, because they are all shown in gray. To colorize them, Select all Faces and the select Objects/Colorize, or click on the Colorize icon (Figure 1.6). This tool uses a circular color assignment scheme to distinctly colorize all selected items.

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Figure 1.6

The Colorize icon

7. The resulting colorized faces are shown in Figure 1.7.

Figure 1.7

All faces after colorization

8. Delete the two Faces of the parallelepiped facing the x < 0 and z > 0 directions to reveal the interior of the box. (Click on each face and select Edit/Delete.)

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9. Select Construction/Extract and Edge, and click on the inclined and lower horizontal edges of the cone face facing y < 0 (Figure 1.8). As a result, two edges are created in the Graphic Window. 10. To project the two edges, select them, select Applications/3Dsurf, and then select Curves/Projection. The cursor symbol changes to the letter F. Move the cursor on the face of the parallelepiped facing the y < 0 direction to highlight it, then left-click to project the edges on it (Figure 1.8).

Figure 1.8

Geometry after removal of two faces and edge projections

11. Delete the three Faces of the cone facing the x < 0, y < 0 and z > 0 directions, and delete the face of the parallelepiped facing the y < 0 direction. In Figure 1.9, you can now clearly see the extracted and projected edges.

Figure 1.9

Geometry after more faces have been removed

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12. Using Construction/Polyline, check Display Characteristic Points and create the six line segments shown in Figure 1.10.

Figure 1.10 Six construction lines appear 13. Using Construction/Extract and Edge, extract the nine edges shown in Figure 1.11. Select all faces and hide them with Display/Hide. What remains visible are all of the edges that have been extracted, as well as those explicitly built in the previous steps (Figure 1.11).

Figure 1.11 Nine extracted edges representing the boundaries of the faces

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14. Select the six edges bounding the top face of the volume. Then select Applications/ 3dsurf and Surfaces/Fill Curves to create the top face of the volume, shown in gray in Figure 1.12.

Figure 1.12 Creation of the top face 15. Select the four edges bounding the sloping face, and then select Applications/3dsurf and Surfaces Fill Curves to create the sloping face, shown in gray in Figure 1.13.

Figure 1.13 Creation of the sloping face

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16. The two faces representing the conical surface and the base of the cone already exist (Figure 1.14). They were created as the result of the dissociation of the cone, but they are currently hidden. Select them in the Objects Explorer, and select Display/Display to make them visible again.

Figure 1.14 Remaining faces of the cone section 17. At this point there are still three faces to be built (light areas in Figure 1.14). Select the edges bounding each face, and create them using Applications/3dsurf and Fill Curves (Figure 1.15). All of the Faces have now been built and you should have a total of 10 faces.

Figure 1.15 Building the remaining faces

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18. In the Objects Explorer, select all faces, and select Edit/Reverse the Selection. All objects other than faces are now selected. Select Edit/Delete to delete them. There should now be ten faces left. 19. Select Edit/Select All, then Objects/Colorize to colorize all faces (Figure 1.16).

Figure 1.16 Final geometry with colorized faces 20. Select File/Save As to open the Save As dialog box. Save your model under the name pl.opn. 21. Select all Faces, and select Applications/3dmesh and Discretize to open the Discretize dialog box (Figure 1.17). This tool transforms a solid model into a collection of triangles enclosing a watertight volume.

Figure 1.17 The Discretize dialog box

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22. Enter 0.001 in the Chord error eld, uncheck the Edges length Max eld, and check the Remove initial object eld. 23. Click on
Create

and

OK

. A triangulated surface is created (Figure 1.18).

Figure 1.18 Triangulated surface representing the geometry 24. Select File/Save As to open the Save As dialog box. Select STL Files in the Save as type eld, and save your geometry under the name p1.stl.

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25. Close the current document. Select File/Open and open p1.stl. Select Applications/ kubrix and Hexahedral Meshing to open the Hexahedral Meshing dialog box (Figure 1.19).

Figure 1.19 Hexahedral Meshing dialog box 26. Click on 10 4 5

Default

and enter the following values in their respective elds:

Max. allowable element edge length Structure of the mesh Resolution

1000 Nb. of surface smoothing iterations Press

Compute

to launch the automatic mesh generation.

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27. Read p1.wrl into 3DShop. You can adjust certain graphic properties of objects to improve visibility. After you read the .wrl le in the Objects Explorer, right-click on the entity marked prim triangle 1 , select Attributes and set its Transparency to 5. Next, select the entity marked prim line 1 , set its Color to yellow and its Line Width to 2 to obtain Figure 1.20.

Figure 1.20 Final mesh for open pit model The data le listed in Example 1.1 is similar to that in Section 1 in the Examples volume. The only difference is that the zoning is replaced by the command IMPGRID p1.ac3d. Example 1.1 Bathtub model created with 3DShop
;------------------------------------------------------------; SL_3D_3DSHOP.DAT influence of slope curvature on stability ; of an open pit modeled using 3DShop ;------------------------------------------------------------; read in flac3d model created by 3DShop impgrid p1.flac3d ; install water table ini pp 0 grad 0 0 -1e4 range z -15.1 0 call water.fis ; assign Mohr Coulomb model and properties mod mo pro bulk 2e8 she 1e8 fric 45 coh 1e5 ten 1e5 ; boundary conditions fix x range x -.1 .1

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fix x range x 79.9 80.1 fix y range y -40.1 -39.9 fix y range y 79.9 80.1 fix x range z -15.1 -14.9 fix y range z -15.1 -14.9 fix z range z -15.1 -14.9 ; initialize density: saturated and unsaturated def ini_dens pnt = zone_head loop while pnt # null if z_pp(pnt) # 0.0 then z_density(pnt) = 2600 else z_density(pnt) = 2500 endif pnt = z_next(pnt) endloop end ini_dens set g 0 0 -10 ; initialize gravity stresses ini syy -6.25e5 grad 0 0 2.5e4 ini sxx -6.25e5 grad 0 0 2.5e4 ini szz -6.25e5 grad 0 0 2.5e4 ; histories hist unbal hist gp xdisp 24.5 -40 25 hist gp zdisp 24.5 -40 25 hist gp xdisp 24.5 0 25 hist gp ydisp 24.5 0 25 hist gp zdisp 24.5 0 25 hist gp ydisp 0 24.5 25 hist gp zdisp 0 24.5 25 ; calculate fos solve fos

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1.6.2 Mine Pillar Model In this tutorial, you will learn to create a solid model and mesh for a mine room-and-pillar layer, as described in Section 2 in the Examples volume. See Figure 1.21.

Figure 1.21 CAD model of mine pillar 1. Start 3DShop and, using File/New, open a new document. 2. Using Applications/3dprim, create a Parallelepiped with the dimensions (13, 7.5, 20). 3. Select the parallelepiped and use Objects/Translation to open the Direction Acquisition dialog box. Click on Center to set the coordinates in the rst column to those of the current center of the object, and set the second column to (6.5, 3.75, 0). Click on OK (Figure 1.22).

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Figure 1.22 View of the box 4. Hide the box and adopt an XZ point of view. Using Construction/Polyline, create a line from (2, 0, 0) to (2, 0, 0). Click on Next , and create a line segment going from (0, 0, 0) to (0, 0, 2). 5. Select Construction/Arc 3Pts to open the Plane Acquisition dialog box. Check Display Characteristic Points, then click on points (2, 0, 0), (0, 0, 2) and (2, 0, 0) to create a circular arc passing through these 3 points (Figure 1.23).

Figure 1.23 A circular arc passing through 3 points 6. Using Construction/Polyline, create a Polyline segment starting at (2, 0, 0), passing through (2, 0, 2) and (2, 0, 2), and ending at (2, 0, 0) (Figure 1.24).

Figure 1.24 Circular arc and rectangle

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7. Delete the two interior line segments. Select the circular arc and the remaining Polyline, and select Construction/Sew to create a closed Wire representing the tunnel crosssection. While in the XZ-view, select Display/Display All to display the box and the section (Figure 1.25).

Figure 1.25 Single Wire representing the tunnel cross-section and the box 8. While in the XZ-view, select the box, and select Construction/Cut. The cursor symbol changes to the letter E. Click on the wire representing the tunnel cross-section to cut the box into 2 parts. 9. Delete the part inside the section (Figure 1.26).

Figure 1.26 What remains of the box when the tunnel is subtracted

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10. Adopt a perspective view (Figure 1.27).

Figure 1.27 Perspective view of the box 11. Select the Wire representing the tunnel section, and select Objects/Rotation to open the Axis Acquisition dialog box. Click on the node at the center of the base of the tunnel section. Next, click on the node located at the apex of the circular arc. Click OK , check the 90 button in the Angle dialog, and then check OK . Figure 1.28 shows the tunnel section before the rotation, and Figure 1.29 after.

Figure 1.28 Rotating the tunnel section around a vertical axis, before

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Figure 1.29 Rotating the tunnel section around a vertical axis, after 12. Adopt a YZ-point of view, select the box, and select Construction/Cut. The cursor symbol turns into the letter E. Click on the wire representing the tunnel section to cut the box. 13. Delete both the portion of the box inside the section and the Wire itself, as it is no longer needed. A perspective view of the excavated box is shown in Figure 1.30. Select File/Save As to open the Save As dialog box, and save your model under the name p2.opn.

Figure 1.30 Final model of the pillar

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14. Select the pillar, and select Applications/3dmesh/discretize to open the Discretize dialog box. This tool transforms a solid model into a collection of triangles enclosing a volume. 15. Enter 0.001 in the Chord error eld, uncheck the Edges length: Max eld, and check the Remove initial object eld. Click on
Create

and

OK

. A triangulated surface is created (Figure 1.31).

Figure 1.31 Triangulated surface representing the geometry 16. Select File/Save As to open the Save As dialog box. Select STL Files in the Save as type eld, and save your geometry under the name p2.stl. 17. Close the current document. Select File/Open, and open p2.stl. Select Applications/kubrix/Hexahedral Meshing to open the Hexahedral Meshing dialog box (Figure 1.32).

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Figure 1.32 The Hexahedral Meshing dialog box 18. Click on 1.5 4 5 1000 -wallsize 0.5 Press
Compute Default

and enter the following values in their respective elds: Max. allowable element edge length Structure of the mesh Resolution Nb. of surface smoothing iterations New keywords

to launch the automatic mesh generation.

19. Read p2.wrl into 3DShop. You can adjust certain graphic properties of objects to improve visibility. Here, after you read the .wrl le, in the Objects Explorer, rightclick on the entity marked prim line 1 , select Attributes, and set its Color to yellow and its Line Width to 2 to obtain Figure 1.33.

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Figure 1.33 Final mesh for pillar model The data le needed to run this problem is shown in Example 1.2. It is similar to that in Section 2 in the Examples volume. The only difference is that the zoning section has been replaced by the command IMPGRID p2.ac3d. Example 1.2 Pillar model created with 3DShop
;------------------------------------------------------------; PILLAR_3DSHOP.DAT evolution of peak load ; in a rectangular pillar ;------------------------------------------------------------def parm rat1=1.14 rat_1=1.0/rat1 end parm def s_base pnt=gp_head sum=0.0 loop while pnt # null if gp_zpos(pnt)<-9.9 then sum=sum-gp_zfunbal(pnt) end_if

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pnt=gp_next(pnt) end_loop s_base=sum/(13.0*7.5) end ; read in flac3d model created by 3DShop impgrid p2.flac3d mo ss fix y fix y fix x fix x fix z apply

range y -.1 .1 range y 7.4 7.6 range x -.1 .1 range x 12.9 13.1 range z -10.1 -9.9 szz -17e6 range z 9.9 10.1

pro bulk 14.1e9 she 8.87e9 fric 35 coh 4e6 ten 5e5 ftab 1 ctab 2 table 1 0 35 0.01 32 0.02 30 .5 30 table 2 0 4e6 0.01 0.5e6 0.02 0 .5 0 ini sxx -25e6 ini syy -30e6 ini szz -17e6 hist unbal hist gp zdisp 0 0 2 hist gp xdisp 2 7.5 0 hist gp ydisp 13 2 0 ; step 4000 ; save pillar1.sav fix z range z 9.9 10.1 ini zvel -1e-5 range z 9.9 10.1 hist gp zdisp 13 7.5 10 hist s_base step 1740 save pillar2.sav step 1645 save pillar3.sav ; ret

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1.6.3 Tunnel Intersection Model In this tutorial, you will learn to create a solid model and mesh for two equal size tunnels intersecting at 45 . This FLAC 3D model is the same as that given in Section 5 in the Examples volume. See Figure 1.34.

Figure 1.34 CAD model of 45 tunnel intersection 1. Start 3DShop and, using File/New, open a new document 2. Adopt an XZ-view and, using Construction/Polyline, create a line segment from (1, 0, 0) to (1, 0, 0). Use Zoom if you need to see the line better. 3. Select Construction/Circle to open the Circle dialog box. Select the Center, Radius type of construction, click on the (0, 0, 0) point located in the middle of the line segment, and enter 1 in the Radius eld (Figure 1.35). Click OK to create the circle.

Figure 1.35 The Circle dialog box

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4. With Construction/Polyline, create one line from (1, 0, 0) to (1, 0, 1), and a second line from (1, 0, 1) to (1, 0, 0 ). 5. Select the circle, and select Construction/Trim. The cursor symbol changes to the letter E. Click on the horizontal segment representing the diameter of the circle. To eliminate the lower portion of the circle, click somewhere below the diameter (Figure 1.36).

Figure 1.36 The trimmed circle and lower rectangle 6. Delete the diameter, select the half-circle and the two vertical lines, and select Construction/Sew to create a single Wire representing the cross section of the tunnel (Figure 1.37).

Figure 1.37 Tunnel cross-section

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7. Adopt an Axonometric perspective view and, using Construction/Polyline, create a line segment from (1, 0, 1) to (1, 20, 1) (Figure 1.38).

Figure 1.38 Tunnel section and line representing the direction of tunnel extrusion 8. Select the tunnel section, and select Application/3Dsolid/Extrude/Along an Edge. The cursor symbol changes to the letter E. Click on the line representing the extrusion direction to create the rst tunnel (Figure 1.39).

Figure 1.39 First tunnel 9. Adopt an XY-point of view. Select the tunnel and, using Edit/Copy followed by Edit/ Paste, create a copy of the tunnel. In the Objects Explorer, select one of the two tunnels, and select Objects/Rotation to open the Axis Acquisition dialog box.

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10. Click once on the button marked Center . The coordinates of the center of the tunnel are entered in the rst column of the dialog box. Click once more on Center to enter the same coordinates in the second column. The resulting axis of rotation is now a vector of length 0. You must create a vertical axis of rotation. To do so, in the second column, replace the present value of Z with 10 (Figure 1.40).

Figure 1.40 Rotation of a tunnel around a vertical axis passing through its center 11. Click on OK to open the Angle dialog box. Check the Other button and enter 45 in the eld next to it, then press OK to complete the rotation of the tunnel (Figure 1.41).

Figure 1.41 The rotated tunnel

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12. In the Objects Explorer, locate and delete the Edge and Wire. There are now two gray Shells left. To colorize them, select them both, and then select Objects/Colorize (Figure 1.42).

Figure 1.42 The Colorize icon 13. Click on the background of the graphic window to see the colorized shells (Figure 1.43).

Figure 1.43 Intersecting tunnels 14. To intersect the two tunnels, rst select one of the Shells. Select Applications/3Dsurf/ Features/Intersection to open the Intersection dialog box. The name of the selected

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Shell already appears in the eld marked First group of objects. Select the other Shell. Its name appears in the eld marked Second group of objects. Click on OK to create the entities representing the intersection of the two groups (Figure 1.44). The Objects Explorer now includes a new folder called Intersection, containing 8 Edges.

Figure 1.44 Intersecting two tunnels 15. Hide both Shells, adopt a perspective view, and create two line segments connecting the base of each of the two arcs (Figure 1.45).

Figure 1.45 Line segments joining arc bases 16. Select one of the horizontal line segments you have just created, and select Objects/Scale to open the Point acquisition dialog box. Click on Center to set the xed point of the scaling to the center of the segment, then click OK to open the Scale dialog box. Enter 2 for

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the scale value and click OK to scale the segment by a factor 2. Similarly, scale up the second horizontal line segment by a factor 2 (Figure 1.46).

Figure 1.46 Scaling up two line segments 17. Delete all edges except the last two that you just scaled up. Select Display/Display all and adopt an XY-point of view (Figure 1.47). You are now going to cut both tunnels along both lines to create 8 separate pieces.

Figure 1.47 Tunnels and cutting lines

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18. Hide the tunnel oriented in the y -direction. The select the angled tunnel, select Construction/ menuitemCut, and click on one of the cutting lines to cut the tunnel in two (Figure 1.48).

Figure 1.48 Cutting one tunnel in two 19. Select both visible pieces of the tunnel, select Construction/Cut, and click on the other line to cut the two pieces into four pieces. There are now four shells on your screen, but represented with just two colors. To colorize them distinctly, select the four visible pieces and select Objects/Colorize (Figure 1.49).

Figure 1.49 The four pieces of the angled tunnel

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20. Hide all visible Shells, and display the remaining tunnel. Using a similar procedure, cut it into four pieces along the two cutting lines, and colorize the four shells (Figure 1.50).

Figure 1.50 The four pieces of the y -direction tunnel 21. Delete the two cutting lines, display all Shells and Colorize them. Please note that four of the smaller Shells are hidden underneath the visible Shells (Figure 1.51).

Figure 1.51 Intersecting tunnels

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22. Delete the Shell pointing to the southwest (Figure 1.52). There are now 3 remaining smaller Shells that need to be deleted.

Figure 1.52 Removing the southwest tunnel 23. Turn the model over, and delete the 3 internal Shells in order to create the nal assembly representing the tunnel intersection (Figure 1.53).

Figure 1.53 The two tunnels after the removal of all unneeded Shells

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24. Select the four remaining Shells, select Construction/Sew and enter 104 for the sewing tolerance to create a single Shell representing the tunnel intersection. Use Construction/ Line to create three line segments connecting the corners of the three arches representing the three ends of the intersection (Figure 1.54).

Figure 1.54 Three line segments connecting the corners of the three arches 25. To cap the three arches, you must extract the Edges that describe them. Select Edge in the Construction/ Extract menu. The cursor symbol changes to the letter E. As you hover the cursor along the edges of the model, you will notice that the Edges become highlighted. Carefully left-click the Edges of each arch, making sure not to forget or duplicate any. Hide the Shell to display only the Edges in the model (Figure 1.55).

Figure 1.55 Extracting the edges representing the three arches

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26. For each of the three arches, select all its edges and, in Applications/3Dsurf/Surfaces, select Fill Curves to create the Face spanning the arch (Figure 1.56).

Figure 1.56 Capping the 3 branch ends 27. Delete all Edges, select the Shell and Faces and select Display/Display all. Select the Shell and the three capping Faces, and sew them together with Construction/Sew and a tolerance of 104 (Figure 1.57). Please note that the oor of the tunnel is still missing.

Figure 1.57 The complete tunnel branch without the oor

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28. To build the oor, select the Shell and select Applications/3Dsurf/Shell/Cap planar holes (Figure 1.58). If you right-click the Shell and select Properties, you will notice that the Shell is now closed.

Figure 1.58 Closed Shell representing the branching 29. Adopt an axonometric perspective view, and select the menu item Parallelepiped from the Applications/3Dprim menu to open the Parallelepiped dialog box. Enter (10, 14, 10) for the dimensions, and click OK to create it (Figure 1.59).

Figure 1.59 The branching and a parallelepiped

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30. Using Objects/Translation, translate the parallelepiped from point (0, 0, 0) to (0, 13, 0). Select the parallelepiped and the Shell representing the tunnel intersection, and select Applications/3Dsolid/Split 2 solids to create all of the Shells resulting from the intersection of the tunnel intersection and the box (Figure 1.60).

Figure 1.60 The result of Split 2 solids 31. Look at the Objects Explorer and you will notice that there is an entity called Compound. This entity represents the two Shells sticking out of the box. It is called a Compound because the Shells do not touch. Were you to Edit/Dissociate the Compound, you would obtain two Shells. Here, simply delete the Compound. 32. Right-click the outer Shell, select Properties and set its transparency to 50% so you can see the tunnel intersection inside (Figure 1.61).

Figure 1.61 The outer Shell is rendered transparent to show the branching inside

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33. Each of the two Shells has its own outer Face. As a result, the Faces forming the tunnel are all doubled. To remove double-Faces, select both Shells and select Edit/Dissociate to dissociate the Shells into 35 constitutive Faces. 34. Select all Faces, select Applications/3Dmesh/Clean to open the Clean dialog box. Enter 104 for the Tolerance and click on Analyse . 3DShop responds with number of objects = 35, number of double objects = 13. Click on Clean to remove all double objects. 35. Select all Faces, select Applications/3Dmesh/Regular Meshing to open the Regular Meshing dialog box (Figure 1.62).

Figure 1.62 The Discretize dialog box 36. Enter 0.001 in the Chord error eld, enter 1 in the Edges length Max eld, and check the Remove initial object eld. Click on
Create

and

OK

. A triangulated surface is created (Figure 1.63).

Figure 1.63 Triangulated geometry

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37. Select File/Save As to open the Save As dialog box. Select STL Files in the Save as type eld, and save your geometry under the name p3.stl. 38. Close the current document. Select File/Open and open p3.stl. Select the menu item Hexahedral Meshing from Applications/kubrix to open the Hexahedral Meshing dialog box. 39. Click on 3 3 4
Default

and enter the following values in their respective elds:

Max. allowable element edge length Structure of the mesh Resolution

1000 Nb. of surface smoothing iterations Press

Compute

to launch the automatic mesh generation.

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40. Read p3.wrl into 3DShop. You can adjust certain graphic properties of objects to improve visibility. After you read the .wrl le, in the Objects Explorer, right-click on the entity marked prim triangle 1 , select Attributes and set its Transparency to, say, 5. Next, select the entity marked prim line 1 , set its Color to yellow and its Line Width to 2 to obtain Figure 1.64.

Figure 1.64 Final mesh for intersecting tunnels model

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