Performing a Body Merge affects attributes, scoping, and meshing as follows.
Body Attributes and Body Merge
Performing a Body Merge resets the attributes of merged bodies (such as the local coordinate system) to their default values or their original imported values.
Scoping and Body Merge
Scoping is preserved for edges, faces, and vertices during a Body Merge. Scoping is not preserved for bodies that are part of a merge.
The following table describes how the Body Merge commands affect scoping for the resulting merged body.
| Body Merge Command | Effect on Merged Body Scoping |
| Restores scoping after and | |
| and | Removes scoping. Use + to restore scoping. |
| Removes scoping. Use to restore scoping. | |
| Deletes scoping. Cannot be restored with . |
Meshing and Body Merge
The following table describes how the Body Merge commands affect the mesh.
| Body Merge Command | Effect on Mesh |
| Retains existing mesh | |
| and | Clears mesh |
| Clears mesh | |
| Clears mesh |
Material Assignment and Body Merge
Material assignment scoping to individual bodies is not preserved during a body merge.
As a work-around, use named selection as follows:
Define a face as a named selection. Face selection is preserved during a body merge.
Use worksheet criteria to create a named body selection from the named face. Since the named body is based on a named face, it is also preserved during a body merge.
Assign a material to the named body selection.
Add a Body Merge to your model.
Warning: If you assign different materials to the individual selected bodies via this work-around, Mechanical will apply the most recent material assignment to the entire merged body during the solution. This can cause unexpected results.
To prevent this from happening, follow the recommended Body Merge workflow and assign a material after creating a merged body. Alternatively, assign the same material to all bodies that will be included in the Body Merge.