Meshing a beam with circular cross section

- July 3, 2019 at 9:34 am
  
  EleG28
  Subscriber
  
  Hello everyone!
  
  I am modelling an Inconel 625 beam with circular cross section in transient structural.
  
  I am having problems with meshing the body. Specifically I noted that I am unable to refine the mesh across the cross section that is no more circular. I have attached an image of the resulting mesh.
  
  The proprerties of the beam are:
  
  length = 160 mm;
  
  diameter = 0,9652 mm.
  
  I am using the 19.1 Student version.
  
  Could someone help me with this problem?
  
  Many thanks!
- July 3, 2019 at 10:50 am
  
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  
  A beam element that is assigned a circular cross-section has a mathematically perfect circle when it comes to computing the stress, strain and deformations in the model. ANSYS Mechanical represents that perfect circular beam cross-section with 8 sides on the display because that is efficient for display purposes. Representing a cylindrical face on the display requires the graphics engine to facet the surface in order to render it to the display and using an actual cylinder would unnecessarily burden the display processor during dynamic view rotations.
  
  The only mesh refinement needed for a beam element is its length.
- July 3, 2019 at 12:29 pm
  
  EleG28
  Subscriber
  
  Hello Peter,
  
  thank you for your answer.
  
  I have noticed that the only refinement allowed for line bodies is across their length, but I'm new at using Ansys and I did not realize that it was just a visualization problem.
  
  Thanks again.