Cross-section properties of a flat face in Mecway, and a Mecway General section made from them in one click.
Select the faces of a cross-section in Mecway (face selection), start the script, and get area, centroid, second moments of area (also about the principal axes), elastic and plastic section moduli, torsion constant J, warping constant Iw, shear centre and shear areas, with a drawing of the section. The input is either the selected mesh faces or the exact boundary of the CAD (STEP) face they lie on. Small gaps in the boundary are closed automatically and reported.
Create general section makes a Mecway material with a general section (area, Iyy,
Izz, torsion constant, perimeter, stress recovery point). The characteristics Mecway has
no field for (shear coefficients, shear centre eccentricity, warping constant, ...) are
stored in the model as an #ASTER-SECTIE line, which
MecwayAsterBridge passes to Code-Aster. The
outline goes along as SECTIE-VORM lines, so that the bridge can show the real shape on the
beams.
The numbers are explained in §3.1 of the manual.
It is the Mecway version of AreaPropsForAlibre: the analysis (a quadratic triangle mesh of the section and the finite element formulation of Pilkey, as the package sectionproperties uses) runs in Python with numpy and scipy.
- Mecway 34 or 35 (Windows), with its scripting (IronPython 2.7.9) and Windows Forms.
- Python 3 with numpy and scipy (scipy 1.3 or newer). This is a prerequisite: Python is
not included. The Python of a Code-Aster installation is found automatically; so is
another Python with these packages. If numpy or scipy is missing, the window says so
and offers to run
python -m pip install numpy scipy. - Optional: MecwayAsterBridge V2026.7 or newer, to use the extra Code-Aster properties and to show the shape of the section on the beams; V2026.8 or newer also warns about a beam that does not fit its section, and V2026.9 or newer shows the stress over the section in the results of a Code-Aster run (with the outline from this tool).
- Download the latest release (Source code (zip),
unzip) or clone this repository, e.g. to
Documents\GitHub\MecwaySectionProps. - In Mecway: Tools > Scripts... > New, and choose
Scripts\MecwaySectionProps.py. It then appears in the Tools menu.
- In Mecway choose Edit > Select faces (and, handy, Edit > Edge detecting selection: one click selects a whole flat face) and select the faces of the section.
- Tools > MecwaySectionProps. The window stays open next to Mecway.
- Choose Mesh faces or CAD face and the Accuracy (mesh fineness), click Calculate. Copy puts the table on the clipboard, Copy image the drawing. A STEP model or assembly without a mesh is not meshed: its planar faces appear as temporary faces in seconds; click one and Calculate again, and they are removed. A surface selected in Mecway's Geometry view cannot be read by scripts.
- Optionally Create general section (material name, component, copy E/ν/ρ, store the extra Code-Aster properties).
Full documentation: English, Nederlands.
Checked against sectionproperties (13 sections: geometric properties exact, J, Iw and
shear areas within 1.6e-4) and against Code-Aster's own MACR_CARA_POUTRE (AY, AZ, EY,
EZ, JG, IYR2, IZR2 within 1e-6); GUI-tested in Mecway 34. Details in the documentation
§6.
Scripts/:MecwaySectionProps.py(entry point),section_gui.py,section_mecway.py,section_utils.py(IronPython 2.7, inside Mecway);section_analysis.py,section_mesh.py,section_fem.py(Python 3 with numpy/scipy, started as a process);section_step.py(STEP reader, both).- Tests:
python tests/test_section_mecway.py,python tests/test_section_step.py,python tests/test_section_analysis.py(reruns itself with a Python with numpy/scipy), and in Mecway's IronPython without Mecway:tools/run_ipy.ps1 -Script <test>.tests/section_aster_check.pycompares withMACR_CARA_POUTRE(runs Code-Aster). - Conventions: AGENTS.md.
Mozilla Public License 2.0. Mecway is a product of Mecway Ltd; this project is not affiliated with Mecway Ltd or EDF (Code-Aster).