Creo Simulate > Modeling Structure and Thermal Problems > Meshes > FEM Meshes > About FEM Meshes
  
About FEM Meshes
After you define a model in the FEM mode, you can generate a finite element mesh for it. You can mesh solids, midsurfaces, and shells separately or in any combination. You can also mesh bars and mass idealizations.
Depending on how you configure your session, Creo Simulate treats the mesh as either a transient or retained modeling object. There are special modeling implications for both approaches, particularly if you are working with assemblies.
Use the items on the Mesh group on the Home tab to control, generate, and check a FEM mesh. Before you create a mesh, this group contains the following active items:
Control—Click the arrow adjacent to this button to open one of the mesh controls. Use this dialog box to create mesh controls. Mesh controls determine the size of the elements, numbering of nodes and elements, and so on. For submodels in an assembly, you can suppress a particular mesh control type, or all mesh control types.
Home > Mesh—Starts the generation of the mesh.
Home > Mesh > Settings—Opens the FEM Mesh Settings dialog box.
Review Geometry—Opens the Simulation Geometry dialog box to view the different connection types and simulation geometry for your model before meshing.
Home > Mesh > Operations—Imports NASTRAN files and allows you to create specialized mesh attributes for models processed in NASTRAN.
This command is available only if the configuration option fem_mesh_operations is set to yes in the configuration options file when you start Creo Simulate. Changing this option during a session does not make this command available for the session.
Home > Mesh > Open FEM Mesh—Opens a saved mesh.
The following mesh type options are available when you click Home and then click the arrow below Mesh. The mesh type options displayed depend on the model. For example, Midsurface is only displayed if the model contains shells or shell pairs.
Select one of the following Mesh types according to your model :
Solid
Midsurface
Solid / Midsurface
Shell
Boundary
Bar
After Creo Simulate successfully generates a mesh, the following buttons become active on the Mesh group:
Improve—Attempts to improve the mesh. When you select Improve, the software asks you to enter the number of additional passes you want for mesh shape improvement. After you enter the number of passes, the software tries to improve the shape of solid and shell elements and redraws the model.
Erase—Erases all or individual meshes in the current part or assembly from the memory. This command is particularly helpful if you are working with hierarchical assembly meshing.
 
* This command only erases the mesh from memory. The Erase command does not erase saved mesh files from disk.
Review—Opens the Review Mesh tab so you can review meshes, nodes, or elements.
Check Elements—Opens the Element Quality Checks dialog box so you can check element quality.
Home > Mesh > Save FEM Mesh—Saves the mesh for the part or assembly model.
You can save the mesh data to a database file for later retrieval.