Checking a FEM Mesh—Topology Optimization
Check Elements is only active after you create an FEM mesh. Click Home > Mesh > Check Elements to open the Element Quality Checks dialog box to check the element quality of your mesh.
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 The Element Quality Checks dialog box also appears immediately after you create a mesh, enabling you to check your mesh at that time. |
Use the
Quality Measures part of the dialog box to indicate which element characteristics you want the system to check. Use
to select all the quality measures or
to clear all quality measure selections in the
Element Quality Checks dialog box.
Each Quality Measures check box represents one of seven tests performed on all elements in the mesh:
• Aspect Ratio—Performed on all shell and solid elements.
• Warp Angle—Performed on shell quadrilaterals only.
• Skew—Performed on shell quadrilaterals only.
• Taper—Performed on shell quadrilaterals only.
• Edge Angle—Performed on shell quadrilaterals only.
• Distortion—Performed on parabolic tetrahedrons only.
• Mid Ratio—Performed on all solid and shell elements.
The value initially shown in each check box represents a basic setting for a well-formed element. If you want your mesh to meet looser or more stringent element limits, you can increase or decrease the individual values to customize your mesh check.
Click Check to perform the mesh check. When the check is complete, the system highlights any elements that do not meet the criteria in the Quality Measures area.
Output Mesh Quality Statistics—For a more precise and permanent record of measurements for elements that fail the mesh check select the Show detailed statistics check box. The output of the mesh quality check is shown as an HTML file provided you retain the default value of html for the configuration option info_output_format. The HTML file shows the mesh statistics in a tabular form. The table columns show failed element and node IDs along with the quality measure for which they fail. The element and node IDs are hyperlinks. Click a hyperlink to highlight the failed element or node in the model.
If you set the configuration option info_output_format to text, mesh quality statistics are shown and saved in a text file with a .bde file extension in your working directory. If elements in the mesh do not meet the criteria in the Quality Measures area the bde file is created in your working directory regardless of the value of the info_output_format configuration option.
Click Home > Mesh > Review to open the Mesh Review tab to review the location of the failed element associated with each element ID.
If you find that you consistently reset one or more of the values on the Element Quality Checks dialog box, you can use configuration options to set the defaults for this dialog box to values appropriate for your designs.
For details about mesh, see the Creo Simulate help.