| ALGORITHM = ClosestPoint | The only available option is ClosestPoint. Values are mapped to the nearest node, integration point, or element center. |
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Search_Radius = SrcEleLen TarEleLen DOUBLE | Specifies the search radius for the mapping algorithm. SrcEleLen is the default, which sets the radius to the average element size of the source mesh. Alternatively, use TarEleLen to apply the average element size of the target mesh, or provide a positive DOUBLE value to define a custom radius. |
| Scale_SearchRadius = DOUBLE | Coefficient to scale search buckets in bucket search algorithm. |
| SORT = BUCKET | Using bucket sort is strongly recommended, as it substantially speeds-up the search algorithm. |
| REPEAT = YES | Enable this option to ensure that all elements and integration points receive mapped data. When there is a significant difference in element sizes between the source and target meshes, the default bucket refinement may be insufficient to cover all points, sometimes by design. In such cases, this flag must be set to guarantee complete data coverage. |
If the target mesh does not contain any information regarding the integration rules being used, such as element formulation and through-thickness integration points, you must define them. The input is as follows:
| NPLANE = INT |
1 - Reduced integrated shell elements. 4 - Fully integrated shell elements. This option is formerly known as NumberOfTARInPlaneIPs. |
| NTHICK = INT | Define the number of through-thickness integration points (IPs). The number of through-thickness IPs must match the number of fibers being mapped, the number of source shell element stacks, and the number of through-thickness IPs in the source mesh. Reduce the number of through-thickness IPs by using the ThroughThicknessAveraging option. See also Figure 5.3: Number of stacks, integration points and fiber IDs for *MAT 249 or note 1. This option is formerly known as NumberOfTARThroughThicknessIPs. |
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IntegrationRule = Gauss Lobatto Autoform Moldflow Eq_Distr | Define the through thickness integration rule of the mapping result. This option directly affects the positions of the through thickness integration points on the target mesh. |
Note: When using the MapMainDir=YES functionality, *ELEMENT_SHELL_COMPOSITE keyword cards are created. The chosen integration point thickness is interpreted as weighting-factors in the LS-DYNA application. Regardless of chosen thickness, neither Gauss nor Lobatto integration rules are reproduced using this keyword. It is best practice to use an equal distribution of the integration points with IntegrationRule=Eq Distr. Integration points are assigned to the layer thickness mid-point defined in either *PART - or *ELEMENT_SHELL_COMPOSITE. If Gauss or Lobatto is set as the integration rule and MapMainDir is set to YES, the weights calculated from the Legendre polynomial are then used to calculate the integration point positions and corresponding thicknesses. As a result, the real relative integration point position is not at ±1 (as an example for Lobatto). Otherwise, this leads to a zero thickness at the integration point, following the *ELEMENT_SHELL_COMPOSITE definition. This does not affect the integration point positions calculated when using *INITIAL_STRESS_SHELL output for *MAT_157 or *MAT_215.