Despite continuous improvements in software and hardware, there’s still need for idealization and engineering judgement when it comes to creating effective FEA models. Yes, with today’s computational horsepower it’s possible to pull in a complex CAD assembly, put a fine tet-mesh on it, set up automatic connections and let it spin for a few hours. But your productivity might not be the best and it also puts you in a tight position for performing checks or sensitivity analyses or performing what-if scenarios. And most likely, you don’t want to lug around a million node model – debugging, run times, and data management all become quite painful with models of that size.
A more elegant approach is to follow the lead of FEA veterans and use a global-local modeling or breakout modeling approach. Global-local modeling takes a very large assembly and reduces it to something that is quick and easy to optimize. Another way to view global-local modeling is like an advanced form of FE symmetry – if it works for your simulation it is like free money.
Models for Global-Local Modeling (369.2 MB ZIP)