I have a mesh with several parts but I only want to merge the nodes in one part. How do I merge these nodes?
There are two approaches, both of which depend on using a negative tolerance. A negative tolerance means that there will be no merging where ever that tolerance is applied.
Suppose part 1 has nodes to be merge.
METHOD 1:
bptol 1 2 -1
stp .001
Method 2:
ptol 1 .001
stp -1
In METHOD 1, the bptol (between part tolerance) sets a tolerance between parts 1 and 2 to be -1. This will override the default tolerance set by the stp command between these two parts. Then the stp command sets the default tolerance for all merging where bptol or ptol commands have not been set. In particular, nodes within part 1 merge using a tolerance of .001.
METHOD 2 is the compliment of METHOD 1. A tolerance for part 1 (overriding the default set by stp) merges nodes with a tolerance of .0001. Everywhere else, the tolerance is -1.
For completeness, one could also use the dummy sliding interface to block merging across the master and slave. This gives you more control but requires a little more effort. These is also a node set version of this using the bnstol so that you can control the merging between 2 node sets. However, the bnstol causes the merging algorithm to slow down.
