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Configure the Design Domain

The design domain defines the region of space where the solver is allowed to place material. All structural features of the final design will live inside this bounding box. The Design Settings panel controls domain geometry and solver resolution.

Opening the panel​

The Design Settings panel appears in the Properties sidebar when the Design toggle is active in the toolbar. If no analysis object exists in the scene, the panel displays "No analysis found."

Domain mode​

deFlex supports two ways to define the domain bounds.

Automatic mode​

When Automatic Design Domain is checked, deFlex computes the domain from the positions of bolt pads and output regions in your scene. A padding factor expands the bounding box so geometry is not flush against the domain edge.

  • Padding -- A slider ranging from 10% to 50% (default 20%). The percentage is applied as extra space on each side of the computed bounding box. Increase padding if preserves sit near domain edges and the optimizer has trouble routing material around them. The current percentage is displayed next to the slider.

Manual mode​

When Automatic Design Domain is unchecked, you specify the domain dimensions directly.

  • Width -- Horizontal extent of the design domain, in the current length unit. Minimum 10.
  • Height -- Vertical extent of the design domain, in the current length unit. Minimum 10.

Manual mode is useful when you need precise control over the domain shape or want to match a specific physical envelope.

Solver settings​

Below the domain geometry, the panel exposes core solver parameters.

Iterations​

The maximum number of optimization iterations the solver will run. Default is 60. Accepts values from 1 to 500.

Most problems converge well before the iteration limit. Increase this value if the design is still evolving when the solver stops. Each iteration involves a full structural analysis pass and design update, so higher values increase total solve time. See Configure Analysis Settings for the convergence tolerance that can trigger early stopping.

Thickness (2D only)​

The out-of-plane thickness of the design, in the current length unit. This field only appears for 2D scenes. Default is 1, with a range of 0.1 to 100.

Thickness affects absolute force and stiffness values computed by the structural analysis but does not change the design shape. Set it to match the intended physical extrusion depth of your part.

Element size​

The edge length of each element in the mesh, in the current length unit. Default is 2, with a range of 0.1 to 10 (step 0.1).

Smaller elements resolve finer structural features but increase memory usage and solve time significantly. In 2D, halving the element size quadruples the element count. See Choose Mesh Resolution for guidance on balancing detail against performance.

Grid​

A read-only display showing the current mesh dimensions as nelx x nely elements. This is computed from the domain width and height divided by the element size, giving you immediate feedback on mesh density as you adjust parameters.

Interaction with other settings​

  • The element size and domain dimensions together determine the solver grid shown in the Grid field. Adjusting any of the three updates the grid display.
  • Volume fraction controls how much of this domain gets filled with material.
  • Analysis settings control solver behavior like nonlinear analysis, stress constraints, and material model.
  • All dimension fields respect the active display unit system and display values in the selected unit.

Read-only scenes​

When viewing a scene you do not own (read-only mode), all fields in this panel are disabled. You can inspect the values but cannot modify them.