Selection Groups

Selection groups allow you to group multiple entities of a common type, specifically parts, edges, surfaces, lines, vertices, elements, element faces, or nodes. Once created, you can select all of the entities that comprise a group with a single click on the group heading in the browser. Define selection groups in the FEA Editor or Results environments.

In the FEA Editor, you can include the following entities in selection groups:

• Parts
• Surfaces
• Edges
• Lines
• Vertices

In the Results environment, you can include the following entities in selection groups:

• Parts
• Surfaces
• Elements
• Element Faces
• Nodes

Note: Part or surface groups created in one environment are also made available in the other environment, and the groups in both environments are kept synchronized. When you edit a part or surface group in one environment, the changes are also reflected in the corresponding group in the other environment. Other entities (aside from parts and surfaces) are only applicable to one environment. Therefore, groups containing these entities are not shared between the FEA Editor and Results environments. Vertices are not the same as nodes. Multiple nodes might exist at a single vertex (if that vertex is at the intersection of two or more parts, or a part and a contact element). The term vertex is specific to the line endpoints in the FEA Editor. The term node is specific to the decoded FEA elements in the Results environment.

Suggested Uses for Selection Groups

Use selection groups to make many of your processes quicker and more efficient. Here are a few examples:

• Quickly hide exterior parts or surfaces to make internal or critical parts visible. When you group such exterior parts or surfaces into a selection group, you can turn their visibility on or off as a group.
• Facilitate your reviewing of analysis results. For example:
  • Group constrained surfaces to quickly sum reaction forces.
  • Group element faces in a thermal analysis to quickly determine the sum of the Heat Rate through Face results.
• Simplify the definition of surface-to-surface contact pairs in MES. Combine multiple surfaces into a selection group and define the group as one of the two contact pair items. This method can greatly reduce the number of individual contact pairs that you must define, yet it solves more efficiently than using part-to-part contact pairs.

How to Create a Selection Group

1. In the browser or graphics window, select objects of a common type. You cannot mix different entity types in a single selection group.
2. Right-click in the graphics window.
3. Click Selection Groups.
4. Click Create new group.
   Note: If you have selection groups already defined, you can add selected objects to an existing group, rather than create another group. To do so, the object types have to be the same. Likewise, you can choose to remove selected entities from an existing group.

Expand the Selection Groups folder in the browser to view your group.

Work with Selection Groups

You can perform many operations on existing groups. Choose from the following, as appropriate.

• Add selected objects to existing groups.
• Remove selected objects from existing groups.
• List the groups which contain the selected objects.
• Move objects between groups.
• Copy objects between groups.

Tip: You can create selection groups with objects from different parts. However, in the case of MES analyses, setup and solution times are shorter when you limit groups to objects from the same part.

Note: See the Selection Groups Essential Skills video on the Wiki for additional information about selection groups and their application.