Cutting is a postprocessing operation used to remove unwanted material such as build supports added during the additive manufacturing process. The cutting operation removes, or deactivates, elements that were activated during the build. Element activation occurs in material input or material activation operations, so you should add the cutting operation after those operations are complete. You can create a separate step in the structural analysis case for the cutting operation after the steps containing material input and material activation. Creating a separate step prevents potential errors that could occur if the cutting operation began when material operations were not complete. For both cutting methods, you can specify the fraction of material that deactivates the elements and whether the elements are partially or fully deactivated when enough material is removed. This is comparable to the fractions available for element activation in the material input and activation processes. Including a material fraction and using partial element deactivation make the simulation more realistic, but they can also increase the computation time required to complete the analysis. Similarly to element activation, you can have the inactive elements follow the model deformation. If there is significant model deformation and inactive elements do not follow the deformation, the elements can distort because of their connection to the motion of the active elements. When the inactive elements are activated, the distortion can cause problems with the simulation. You can change the time increment over which thermal strains are ramped down when elements are deactivated. Removing the strains gradually can aid in solution convergence, especially when there is plasticity. The default constant is two times the initial time increment in the static step. You also have a degree of control over the volume fraction calculation that determines when elements are deactivated. Element subdivision supports an automatic setting (0) and two levels of precision (1 and 2), where 2 is the more accurate setting. Similar to the material fraction, these settings increase realism but also increase the computation time. Straight-Line CuttingThe straight-line method allows you to define a simple linear cutting path. You select the start point, an axis system, the length of the cut, and the time the cut takes. You can specify a cutting bead height and width, or you can use default values. In the straight-line method, the X|U direction of the selected axis system defines the cutting direction. The default value of the cutting bead height is the average element height, and the default width is the entire width of the model. Event Series CuttingThe event series method allows you to bring in an external event series, similar to the event series for defining a moving heat flux, to define a multisegment path. In the event series method, you can specify whether the bead height, bead width, or tool orientation vary. The event series document that you create must include entries for each item that varies. If you specify fixed height or width, the default height is the average element height, and the default width is the entire width of the model. You can enter another value for the bead height and width, and you must enter a value for all other fixed parameters. The event series must include an on/off column indicating whether the material removal is active at each change in the series. | ||||||