Learning Forum

[Jared Darius]

After every troubleshooting method I could think of, I need some help getting past this issue of a model being unable to be properly recognized by DesignModeler.

Upon importing a CATIA V5 model to DesignModeler, properly associating the bodies of the model into their respective parts, and generating the ShareTopology tool, I get the following error:

"Conversion of body to DesignModeler format failed. 

Context: Feature ShareTopo"

For some additional backstory, this is a large and complex CATIA V5 3D model that I wish to run structural simulations on with finite element methods in ANSYS Mechanical 2022 R2. I am able to upload the model into SpaceClaim, where I can successfully partition the geometry and share topology, and even import the resulting geometry into Mechanical for the structural study. However, the intent of this study is to run an iterative approach on variations of specific geometric features, for which I would like to use the parametrically driven DesignModeler instead of SpaceClaim, so that I can assign traceable parameters to these features of interest and run a batch of simulations iterating over a range of feature sizes.

I have tried leveraging SpaceClaim's interpretation of the geometry by first importing the CATIA geometry to SpaceClaim, partitioning it, saving as a STEP file, re-importing the partitioned geometry into CATIA, then importing the revised and partitioned CATIA model into DesignModeler. However, it is at this point that I still get the error about being unable to convert to a DesignModeler format.

During this process, upon importing the partitioned model from SpaceClaim back into CATIA, I noticed certain bodies were being generated as shells or surfaces, rather than solids (everything should be solids). With further paritioning to isolate the source, I was able to make some fixes in the original CATIA model to repair some infinitesimal gaps or poorly aligned surfaces/bodies. However, after countless iterations of this to eliminate all bodies that were being generated as as surface/shell types, the issue of being unable to convert to DesignModeler format persists.

If anyone else has found a solution to this kind of problem before, I would greatly appreciate the help!

[Rob]

It can depend on the volume definitions, but also things like self intersecting faces. If you're not doing anything with the volume in question (ie it's just passing straight to Mechanical) it shouldn't cause any problems. Note, the parameters in CATIA aren't passed to DM without the licenced CAD Readers so you'll need to alter some parts in DM if you want to take advantage of the parameter tools.