Meshing Options

Meshing Options are essential factors in determining the quality of the mesh and hence the results. Results based on different preference settings should converge to each other if an adequately small element size is used. Meshing options are not used for beams.

You can set the Mesh quality to Draft or High. A draft quality mesh does not have mid-side nodes. Draft quality can be used for quick evaluation and in solid models where bending effects are small. High quality mesh is recommended in most cases, especially for models with curved geometry.

The Standard mesher uses the Voronoi-Delaunay meshing scheme for subsequent meshing operations.

The Curvature based mesher creates more elements in higher-curvature areas automatically (without need for mesh control). It also supports multi-threaded meshing for assembly and multi-body part documents.

The Jacobian points when Mesh quality is set to High sets the number of points to be used in checking the distortion level of high order tetrahedral elements.

For high order shells, the Jacobian check uses 6 points located at the nodes.

Automatic transition automatically applies mesh controls to small features, details, holes, and fillets. Uncheck Automatic transition before meshing large models with many small features and details to avoid generating a very large number of elements unnecessarily.

Automatic trials for solids instructs the mesher to automatically retry to mesh the model using a smaller global element size. You control the maximum number of trials allowed and the ratio by which the global element size and tolerance are reduced each time.

Remesh failed parts with incompatible mesh. Using this option can help mesh bonded solids that fail compatible meshing. If Automatic looping is on and bonding solids using compatible mesh is requested, the software tries incompatible meshing automatically for solids that fail to mesh with the compatible option.

Setting the color for plotting the bottom faces of shell elements helps you align shell elements properly.

Setting the Meshing Options

You define meshing options for new studies in the Default Options - Mesh dialog box.

To set default meshing options for new studies:

  1. Click Simulation > Options > Default Options > Mesh.
  2. Specify the desired settings.
  3. Click OK.
To modify the meshing options for an active study, right-click Mesh (Simulation study tree) and click Create Mesh. Under Mesh Parameters and Advanced, specify the desired settings.