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Table of Contents
Wires
Definition
A Wire
is a set of Curves
, used for example to create a Side
. Wires
can be open, closed, and even discontinuous. However, some operations, such as meshing, can only be applied to specific Wires.
The orientation of a Wire
is given by the succession of its lines (see figure above). This orientation is relevant to define contact tools, since the material of the tool must be on the right hand side when following the list of Curves.
The orientation is also relevant when meshing a Side
, since the Wire
must be defined “area to the left”. If the Wire
is made of only one Curve
, the orientation of the Wire
is set to the one of this Curve
. If the Wire
is made of two Curves
, the first Curve
defines the Wire
orientation.
The Wire
can be defined by specifying all its Curves
at once, but it is always possible to add more Curves
with the push()
member function:
wire = wirset.add( Wire(number, [curve1, curve2, curve3, ...]) ) wire.push(curve4) wire.push([curve5, curve6,...])
number | Wire user number ($\ge 1$) |
curve1 , curve2 , curve3 , … | List of Curves |
Notes about Wires and contact
- When a
Wire
is used as a contact tool, the succession ofCurves
should have a continuous normal. - For rigid-deformable contact, a
Wire
must be defined “area to the left”, and the Wire orientation if defined by the succession of its curves. - The function
wire.reverse()
inverts the order of definition of the wire, which also inverts the orientation of its normal. - To understand how Metafor calculates an “average out-of-plane normal” of a
Wire
, which is sometimes used in 3D contact, readSurfaces
.