ACIS Error 30001 ??

mike

Hi folks, I am trying to mesh my SAE Aerodesign plane in GAMBIT, but I've run into a fairly preliminary problem:

I've imported the CAD, as a .iges file. It was created in Solidworks 2005. When I import the file, I find that there are 13 (or so) volumes in existence. My plan is to unite the volumes until only one volume remains (call it V1). After this point, I plan to create the far field volume (V2), and then subtract V1 from V2 to create the volume that will eventually be meshed.

When uniting two of the volumes, I receive the following error:

ACIS error 30001: coincident face_face_ints with different body vertices Restoring the geometric model to the state before current operation (if there is a positive number of default UNDO levels).

Does anyone know what the origin of this might be?

Also, does my plan thus far sound ok? Any advice on meshing strategies after this problem is solved?

Thanks very much for your time,

Mike