MPanel Design Checklist Now Available on our Website      

Meliar Design and CAD Effects LLC pride ourselves on our MPanel Support Team. We answer your questions and comment on your drawings in the shortest possible time.

 

And though we are happy to help whenever we can, we can not ultimately be responsible for your fabric structure design. Every individual designer has their own sense of  form and each company has it’s own manufacturing standards. Having said that, there are some basic steps that can be taken when you are having a problem with your tensioned fabric structure drawings.

 

To help you to troubleshoot your MPanel designs, we have published on our website, the checklist that we go through when you send your drawings to us. New MPanel users, and even some of our ‘old hats’ who are trying a new design, will be able to use our checklist when MPanel gives an unexpected result.

 

We have listed below just 3 of the most common design mistakes that we encounter. Our full ‘checklist’ is available for you to download at www.mpanel.com. And remember, the MPanel Support Team is always there when you need us!

      

Model Fully Relaxed?

  

Even Mesh Density?

    

Stress Distribution Reasonable? 

  
     

If the model is relaxed for another 100 iterations, does it move at all? Usually if the last relaxation had an error less than 1E-4 you are OK (The last relaxation error is stored in the mesh extended data, shown by the Info tool.

MPanel will cope with differing mesh densities on multi mesh relaxation’s, but the algorithm used will move the mesh nodes towards even spacing, giving a bow in the mesh junctions. It is better to avoid this complication and aim to keep roughly equal mesh density over the model.

Under normal relaxation, the stress is proportional to the line spacing in the mesh. So the top of the mesh in a cone tent, with a small top ring, has a high longitudinal stress. The drawing shows the line spacing variation in a cone tent mesh.

 
     

MPanel v11 to be Released  May 11

            

Meliar Design and CAD Effects LLC are announcing the release of MPanel v11 on the 11th of May.

   

New Options Include:

 

· The ability to easily define constant width panels  

· Panel and Merge several seams in one operation                 

· New Relaxation Technique for Multi-Meshes           

 

      

As always, if you are an MPanel user with a current Technical Support Contract, you will receive your new version of MPanel automatically, by email, before our general release. If you are an MPanel user whose Support Contract has lapsed, contact us to renew your contract.

 

If you are not part of our MPanel User’s group, but would like to see if MPanel is the design tool you have been missing, please contact us and we will send you a fully functional evaluation copy of MPanel to use free of charge for 30 days!

      
In the US & Americas contact:
 

Timothy Akes

CAD Effects, LLC

10805 Sunset Office Drive,  Ste 300

St. Louis, Missouri  63127 USA

(314) 631-6300 voice

(314) 754-9388 fax

takes@cadeffects.com

 

 In Australia contact:
 

Alan Stewart

Structureflex

280 Bay Road

Cheltenham, 3192 Victoria, AU

(03)9581 6150 voice

(03) 9581 6177 fax

alan@structureflex.com.au

   In the UK, Europe, & Asia contact:

 Andrew Askwith
 Meliar Design
 Lower Cwm Barns
Llanafan Fawr Builth Wells,
Powys, Wales, UK LD2 3SG
+44 (0)1597 860291
andrew@meliar.com		    
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