Can someone tell me how to create a cross section in Mechanica. I would like to view the internal stresses of different sections in my 3D model. Thanks for your help.
Dan Once you get a view displayed in Mechanica, go to the insert pull down tab on the top menu bar, pick "cutting/capping surfaces" Follow the promts to display the cutout view you want. Rick
To show a section to see the stress inside the model try the following: Create the required result window (don't use the animated option) Insert > Cutting/Capping Surfs You can choose from the drop down whether you want cutting or capping surface (cutting just shows the slice through) Choose the plane you want to cut with and the depth and click "Apply" - now click "Dynamic" and hold down your left hand mouse button within the result window and move your mouse up and down to dynamically move the section plane. To end click your middle mouse button in the screen. To get rid of the cutting/capping surface: Edit > Delete Cutting/Capping Surface You might also like this option - you can clip by value: In the Cutting/Capping Surfs window, choose "Capping Surface" and choose the "Define" pull-down which defaults to "WCS" and change this to "Isosurface" and change the Location to "Below". Now try the Dynamic option again and you can see the highest stress areas in the model. I hope this helps.
Awesome that worked great! I had been using CSMOS in SolidWorks to do this, but I might switch back over to Mechanica. One follow up question for you guys. How can I change the units? I would really like to have my stress show up in PSI vs kg/mm^2. Any thoughts. Sorry for all the newbie questions. I am just getting me feet wet with Mechanica.
In Wildfire 4.0 and previous releases you have to change the units of your model before you enter Mechanica (Edit>Setup>Units). In Wildfire 5.0 you can mix units and display results in any units.
