Body Mesh Control

Introduction

Body Mesh Control option is used to control the mesh on the selected local bodies.

Element Type

  • Tet4
  • Tet10 straight edge
  • Tet10 curved edge

    This option enables the projection of mid nodes, along the faces and the edges, onto the geometry when the body is meshed with Tet10 elements.

  • Wedge6 / Hex8

    This option enables specifying the local sizes for the 2.5D bodies. 2.5D mesh will be done for the bodies with Wedge6/Hex8 element type.

Body Mesh Size

  • Average Element Size (AES)

    The mesh generated for this local region will have elements with edge lengths that fall between AES*Sqrt(2) and AES/Sqrt(2).

  • Max Element Size

    This toggle allows the user to use Maximum Element size instead of Average element size.The mesh will have no elements with an edge length greater than the Maximum Element Size.

  • Min Elem Size (Minimum Element Size)

    The mesh will have no elements with an edge length smaller than the Minimum Element Size.

Geometry Approximation

  • Max Angle Per Element (Maximum Angle Per Element)

    The approximation of a geometry is related to the angle made by an element edge on a perfect circle. Suppose the angle is 45 deg, then this will approximate a circle by 8 elements. This same measure is extended to an arbitrary curved surface.

  • Curvature Min ElemSize (Curvature Minimum Element Size)

    The mesh approximates the geometry by varying the mesh size as a function of the curvature. Such geometry approximation cannot result in a mesh size smaller than Curvature Minimum Element Size.

Surface Mesh Quality

  • Aspect Ratio

    Aspect ratio determines the quality of mesh. Aspect Ratio value varies from 1(equilateral element) to infinity(flat element). The default aspect ratio value is 10.

  • Mesh Grading

    The variation of mesh in the face from the boundary to interior is controlled by the Surface Mesh Grading. Default Surface Mesh Grading value is 1.5.(Average Element size marches 1.5 times from fine to coarse).

Volume Mesh Quality

  • Internal Grading

    The variation of tet mesh inside the body from surface is controlled by the Internal grading. In case of bodies having very fine surface mesh, the grading of tet mesh from fine, at the surface, to coarse as we move in, is obtained based on the grade factor.

Advanced Body Mesh Control

  • Mapped Mesh
    • Auto: The mesher will automatically determine the faces that could be iso-meshed. All regular 4-edged faces and faces that are 4-sided will be iso-meshed.
    • Regular 4-sided faces: All regular 4-edged faces, even if the edges are not of similar size will be iso-meshed.
    • None: Free mesh will be forced for all faces in the body, even if it is a regular 4 edged face.
  • Coarse Volume Mesh

    Coarse Volume Mesh is used to reduce the number of solid elements (Tet4 and Tet10) and subsequently the number of nodes. On an average, coarse volume mesh generates ~20% less nodes/elements compared to regular volume mesher.

Example

Top body is assigned with a body mesh control of mesh size 0.25.

Both bodies are meshed with a global mesh size of 1 out of which the body mesh control reflects in the top body.