peteroznewman
posted this
06 October 2018
- Last edited 06 October 2018
Jung,
The solver automatically splits Pyramid elements into Tet elements, so that is not a problem. The long solution time has little to do with the Pyramid elements. It has everything to do with the shortest element edge length in the model. You can replace all Tet elements with Hex elements with the same edge length and the model will still take 2 days to solve.
The Explicit Dynamics solver calculates a critical time increment from the edge length of the smallest element in the model. One way to cut the solution time in half is to double the element size of the smallest element. But that reduces the detail in the solution. Another way to cut the solution time in half is to artificially increase the density of the materials in the model by a factor of four, but that changes the physics of the problem.
You might consider cutting off the tip of the projectile in the geometry editor to remove a region that will be filled with small elements, thus increasing the length of the shortest element edge length in the model. It's good to follow Sandeep's advice and try to make Hex elements because Tet elements often have one edge much shorter than the other three. That short edge is going to dictate the critical time increment.
The only way to reduce solution time without giving up detail or changing the physics is to use a computer with lots of cores and use an HPC license.
Regards,
Peter