Solid Mesh

To create a solid mesh:

1. In the Study PropertyManager, select the Solid analysis procedure.
2. In the PlasticsManager , right-click Solid Mesh , and select a Mesh Type. Do one of the following:
   1. In the PlasticsManager , right-click Solid Mesh , and click Create Mesh .
   2. In the Plastics CommandManager, click Create Mesh .

You can create three types of solid meshes:

1. Tetrahedral Hybrid
2. Hexahedral
3. Automatic

Tetrahedral Hybrid

The tetrahedral hybrid mesh type uses a triangular surface mesh as a basis for creating tetrahedral volume elements, generally combined with boundary layers. Boundary layers are layers of prismatic elements at the surface of the body. When you span gaps that are small relative to the local surface mesh size, a prismatic element is better able to maintain a high-quality, less-distorted shape than a tetrahedral element. In general, for thin gaps you need 5 boundary layers of prismatic elements to get accurate and robust flow solutions. By default, the software creates 2 boundary layers.

Hexahedral

The hexahedral mesh type uses nonorthogonal hexahedral elements to fill the volume of a domain. In regions where the software cannot create hexahedral elements of sufficiently high quality, the software instead creates tetrahedral elements.

Hexahedral elements, when aligned with the part cavity (and hence the melt flow) can potentially deliver more accurate and efficient solutions. However, the hexahedral mesh type might not be suited to all shapes. The software first creates a triangular surface mesh as a preprocessing step, and then bases the hexahedral meshing on this surface mesh rather than the part geometry. This extra step introduces a potential source of error in terms of approximation to the original geometry.

Automatic

The Automatic mesh type is the fastest way to create a mesh with minimum user intervention. The software assigns a mesh size based on the part dimensions, and applies a curvature-based refinement to capture small features. Where possible, the software creates a tetrahedral hybrid mesh. If meshing fails because of geometry issues, such as non-manifold edges or gaps between surfaces in the model, the software creates a Cartesian voxel mesh.

Use the Automatic mesh option for rapid analysis. Be cautious because the voxel mesh cannot always accurately represent the geometry. For accurate analysis, use the Tetrahedral Hybrid or Hexahedral mesh types.