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Overview

Preprocessing is often the bottleneck in simulation workflows. Getting geometry clean, mesh quality acceptable, and boundary conditions correct can take hours — and a single missed setting can invalidate the entire run. Nexus accelerates every stage of preprocessing. It understands your model, applies settings intelligently, and flags issues before you hit Solve. For teams working from published test methods or internal simulation standards, Nexus can replicate those setups consistently across every new model.

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What Nexus can help with

  • Geometry cleanup — Identify and fix small faces, slivers, gaps, and non-manifold edges that prevent meshing.
  • Material assignment — Apply materials from your library by name or specification, across single bodies or entire assemblies.
  • Contacts and connections — Define bonded, frictional, or no-separation contacts; set up joints, springs, and beams.
  • Mesh — Apply global and local sizing, add refinement zones, sweep-mesh structured regions, and verify mesh quality metrics.
  • Boundary conditions — Apply loads (force, pressure, thermal, fluid) and constraints (fixed support, displacement, symmetry) by describing them in engineering terms.
  • Named selections — Create and manage named selections for scoping BCs, mesh controls, and results.

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Example prompts

Check the imported geometry in the current Mechanical model for meshing issues. List any small faces below 0.5mm², gaps, or non-manifold edges and apply automatic fixes where possible. Report what was changed.

Apply Structural Steel to all bodies. Set a global mesh size of 5mm. Add a refinement zone of 1mm on all fillet faces. Verify that no elements have skewness above 0.9 and report the mesh statistics.

1. Fix all four bolt hole faces (underside of each boss).
2. Apply a 2000N force in the -Z direction, distributed over the top pad face.
3. Add a frictionless support on the two symmetry faces.
Confirm each BC has been applied and report the total constrained DOF count.

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Paper-to-simulation example

One of the most powerful uses of Nexus in CAE is converting a published test method or design standard into a ready-to-run simulation — without manually translating every setup step. Scenario: Your team needs to validate a bracket against load cases defined in an internal test protocol (PDF). Normally this means reading the document, cross-referencing it with the CAD geometry, and manually entering every setting. With Nexus:
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Describe the test

Share the key parameters from the protocol with Nexus in a single prompt:
Set up a static structural analysis for C:/Projects/Bracket/bracket_v3.x_t based on our test protocol:
- Material: Aluminium 6061-T6 (E = 68.9 GPa, ν = 0.33, yield = 276 MPa)
- Fixed constraint: all four M6 bolt hole faces
- Load case 1: 500N in -Y at the free end pad face
- Load case 2: 200N in +X at the free end pad face
- Mesh: 2mm global, 0.5mm at stress concentration zones (fillets, holes)
- Output: von Mises stress, total deformation, safety factor against yield
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Review and adjust

Nexus sets up the full model and provides a setup summary. Review it and refine:
The fixed support is on the wrong face — it should be on the underside of the flange, not the top. Also add load case 3: combined 500N -Y and 200N +X applied simultaneously.
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Run and report

Run all three load cases. For each, report the maximum von Mises stress, its location, and the minimum safety factor.
Once a setup is correct, Nexus can reproduce it on a new geometry in minutes. This is especially valuable for recurring validation studies or teams running the same protocol on multiple design variants.

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Tips for preprocessing prompts

  • State the analysis type first — “Static structural”, “transient thermal”, “steady-state CFD” — it sets the context for all subsequent settings decisions.
  • Use engineering language for loads — “500N force”, “1 MPa pressure”, “fixed support” — Nexus translates these into solver-specific inputs.
  • Chain your setup steps — List them in a numbered sequence so Nexus confirms each one before moving to the next.
  • Request a setup summary before running — Nexus will list all applied materials, contacts, mesh settings, and BCs for you to review before committing to the solve.