Meshing User's Guide

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Mesh Sweeping
This method of meshing complements the free mesher. If a body's topology is recogn
sweepable, the body can be meshed very efficiently with hexahedral and wedge elem
technique. The number of nodes and elements for a swept body is usually much smal
meshed with the free mesher. In addition, the time to create these elements is much
Workbench will automatically check to see if the body fulfills the topological requireme
sweeping. It will then choose two faces that are topologically on the opposite sides of
These faces are called the source and target faces. Workbench will mesh the source f
quadrilateral and triangular faces and then copy that mesh onto the target face. It the
either hexahedral or wedge elements connecting the two faces and following the exte
the body.
Note:

This information applies to general sweeping. For requirements

usage information specific to thin model sweeping, see Thin Mo
Sweeping.
For descriptions of the sweep option settings, see Sweep Metho
Control.

Requirements for General Sweeping

A body cannot be swept if any of these conditions exist:
There is a completely contained internal void in the body.
A source and target pair cannot be found. That is, the sweeper cannot find at
from a source surface to a target surface connected by edges or closed surfac
If a Sizing control is used on a body with hard edge sizing and the source an
contain hard divisions which are not the same for each respective edge.
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When sweeping it is only necessary to apply hard divisions to one leg of the sweep pa
has multiple edges, you should apply your controls to that path.
If the sweep path is shared by another body and that path lies on the body's source o
then more hard divisions may be needed to constrain the sweeper.
When using Virtual Topology with sweeping, avoid creating virtual cells that result in a
surface. Fully closed surfaces cause difficulties for the swept mesher and may result in
When selecting adjacent faces for inclusion in a virtual cell, it is best to use Virtual To
some (but not all) of the faces. A good approach is to use Virtual Topology for the sm
omit any larger faces from the virtual cell.
To preview any bodies that can be swept meshed, click Mesh on the Tree Outline and
mouse. Select Show> Sweepable Bodies from the context menu to display bodies
requirements of a sweepable body. However, even if these requirements are met, the
body may at times still result in poorly shaped elements. In these cases, the tetrahed
used to mesh the body.
The Show Sweepable Bodies feature only displays bodies that can be swept where
and target are not adjacent on an axis. It cannot automatically determine axis-sweepa
However, more enhanced sweeping capability, including axis-sweeping, is available by
Sweep option of the Method mesh control.
For help in diagnosing problems when using the Sweep method, refer to the descript
Edge Color Option toolbar in the Mechanical help. This toolbar provides access to fe
intended to improve your ability to distinguish edge and mesh connectivity.

Other Characteristics of General Sweeping

Other characteristics of sweeping include the following:
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The general sweeper ignores the Num Cells Across Gap setting, which is us
define the proximity size function.
Hard entities are not supported for the general sweeper.
If the sweep method is applied to a body and a Mapped Face Meshing con
for either the body's source or target face, the sweep mesher will fail if a map
cannot be obtained for the face.
The source and target faces do not have to be flat or parallel.
If the topology of the source and target face is the same, the sweeping opera
succeed even if the shape of the source face is different from the shape of th
However, drastically different shapes can cause element shape failures.
Sweeping does not require your model to have a constant cross section. How
results are obtained for constant or linearly varying cross sections.

Figure: Axis Sweep Representation

Figure: Edge Only Sweep Path

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Figure: Edge Plus Closed Surface Sweep Path

Rules Followed By the General Sweeper

In deciding which area should be designated as the source area for general sweeping
uses the following rules, in the order as listed below. The sweeper will check all the ru
a rule to use. Once a higher order rule is used, all the lower rules will not be consider
if none of the first five rules apply, it will check against rule 6. In this case, if a face is
and the other face is not a plane (not flat), the flat face will be picked as the source a
be terminated.
1. Manually set control - specify both source and target: The source and
sweeping will be exactly as the user specifies. This is the fastest way of mesh
eliminate searching for a possible source and target. For axis-sweeping, this m
be used. If a face is a source of another body and is not picked as a source o
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

body, the aforementioned face will be used as a source.

Manually set control - specify source: Once the user specifies a source a
program will try to find the target suitable to the source. The source will be e
specified.
Mapped Face Mesh control: The program finds the face with a Mapped F
control applied to it.
Number of loops: The face with the largest number of loops will be picked a
Number of lines: The face with the largest number of lines will be picked as
Flat face: A flat face has higher priority for being a source face.
Less sharing: In most cases, a face might be used by one or a maximum of
every one is flat (plane), the one used by the least number of bodies (that is,
one body) will be picked as source face.
Larger area: The largest area will be picked as the source.

Topological Requirements of the General Swe

The general sweeper must have at least one path between the source face and target
faces of the sweep do not need to be singular but they must all be submappable and
loops. The source face cannot be a closed analytic such as a full cylinder, torus or sph
partial analytics are acceptable as source and target faces.
Note: Creo Parametric creates unique topological models that no other CAD sy
creates. In all other CAD systems, non-periodic faces can have only 1 ex
topological loop. On the other hand, models in Creo Parametric can have
non-periodic faces with multiple exterior loops. This type of topology do
pose a problem for the free meshers in the Meshing application. Howeve
does pose a problem for the general sweeper. As noted above, side face
sweep must have single loops. They cannot have multiple exterior loops
if they do, a single path from the source to the target cannot be determ
Importing the model into the DesignModeler application breaks the face
multiple exterior loops into multiple faces with single loops because the
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DesignModeler kernel does not support the Creo Parametric topology. Ex

the model from Creo Parametric to IGES or STEP format will also resolve
issue.

Figure: Example (a) Showing Invalid Closed Cylindrical Face as Source Face

Figure: Example (b) Valid Open Cylindrical Face as Source Face

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Figure: Example (c) Multiple Connected Side Faces

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Using General Sweep to Mesh a Narrow Chann

The series of images below illustrates the use of general sweep, along with mapped f
and hard edge sizing controls, to mesh a narrow channel body. Figure: Axial Sweep M
the source, target, and side areas of the axial sweep model used in this example.
Figure: Axial Sweep Model
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Because the source and target areas to be meshed are a narrow channel and you wa
meshed with map mesh, it may present difficulties to the mesher. In Figure: Axial Sw
Mapped Face Meshing Control, a mapped face meshing control is defined on the sour
vertices (two on each side area) have been selected for the Specified Sides control.
Figure: Axial Sweep Model: Mapped Face Meshing Control

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In cases similar to this example, the key to obtaining a successful mesh is the definitio
edge sizing control to make the two paired parallel edges. As shown in Figure: Axial S
Hard Edge Sizing Control, set the Type to Number of Divisions and enter a value i
Number of Divisions field (in this case, 50). The Hard option ensures the number o
the same on the pair of edges.
Figure: Axial Sweep Model: Hard Edge Sizing Control

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Finally, Figure: Axial Sweep Model: Meshed shows the mesh obtained using the settin
above.
Figure: Axial Sweep Model: Meshed

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