Advanced Meshing

in ANSYS
Mechanical

Govindan Nagappan

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Summary

Meshing Framework ►Improved Virtual Topologies

Improvements ►Mesh-based Connections
►Direct meshing ►Improved Named Selections
►Parameter handling

Mesh Controls ►Mesh Based Defeaturing

►Advanced Size Function ►Improved Mapped Meshing
►Body of Influence ►Pinch Control

Mesh Methods ►Improvements in Hex meshing

►Improvements in Shell meshing ►Sweep
►MultiZone meshing

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 Direct Meshing

• ANSYS Workbench meshing has been focused on

automated meshing:
– Software automates choice of methods, physics
defaults and controls
– Interaction between methods is automated

• At 13.0, the user has greater access to directly

mesh bodies of multibody parts:
– This provides more flexibility and control over the
meshing process
– Control the meshing sequence

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 Direct Meshing

• Direct Meshing advantages:

– Bodies can be meshed individually
– Mesh seeding from meshed bodies influence
neighbors (user has sequence control)
– Automated meshing can be used at any time to
finish rest of meshing (control where you want it
while keeping the automation)
– When controls are added, only affected body
meshes go out of date
– More extensive mesh method interoperability

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 Direct Meshing: Local Meshing

• Individual bodies can be meshed (no need for

suppression as in 12.1)
• Subsequent bodies use the attached face mesh

Direct Meshing allows for more combinations of how to handle the

common interface between bodies

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 Direct Meshing: Local Remeshing
• Automated meshing:
– Mesh methods and order
defined automatically
– Good starting mesh
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• Direct meshing:
– On inspection, would like
more mesh in some spots:
Add method, inflation or
sizing control and upon
Generate Mesh, only this
body (and any affected
bodies) are re-meshed
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 Direct Meshing: Selective Body
Updating
• Similarly if only part of the geometry changes:
– Only affected bodies need
to be updated/remeshed

Geometry Refresh –only 1 body is out of date

Face Delete in DM

Generate mesh –only 1 body is meshed

– Significant time savings

on model change

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 Direct Meshing: State
Management
• State management: The part/body tree will
indicate which bodies need to be remeshed:
State icons indicate status of bodies.
When mesh controls are added you will
notice that the state changes, even
though the mesh remains visible.

Body meshes can be generated or

cleared at body level.
Generate mesh at mesh level will
generate the mesh for all unmeshed
bodies

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 Direct Meshing: Ordered Meshing

• Automated meshing • Direct meshing

Layer of tet
mesh required
as topology With Direct Meshing:
changes Mesh thin sweep first,
then mesh rest of model with
Automated meshing

Direct meshing complements the

automated meshing
Thin Sweep Mesh Method can handle this, but the
order the mesh is generated in is critical
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 Direct Meshing:

• Method interoperability between:

– Volume meshing:
• Patch Conforming Tet
• Patch Independent Tet*
• Sweep
• Thin Sweep
• MultiZone*
• Hex dominant
– Shell meshing:
• Default
• Uniform*
* New in 13.0
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 Parameterization in ANSYS
Meshing
Meshing controls can now be parameterized
– Global controls and local controls
– Selection of parameter promotes the parameter to the WB project page
– Geometry and Meshing parameters can be related using expressions in the parameter
manager

New in AM 13.0!

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 Parameterization Project Example

• Number of divisions
on the outlet pipe
equal to two times its
length
• Number of divisons
on the inlet pipe equal
to its length + 4
8+4=12 divisions

Outlet

Inlet

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 Parameterization Project Example
(Con’t)

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 Virtual Topology

When to use?
• To merge together a number of small (connected) faces/edges
• To simplify small features in the model
• To simplify load abstraction for mechanical analysis
• To create edge splits for better control of the surface mesh control New in AM
13.0!
• Virtual cell modifies the topology
– Original CAD model remains unchanged Without VT With VT
– New faceted geometry is created with
virtual topology

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 Edge Splits to Guide Meshing
Edge splits introduced to
• VT edge splits constrain the mapped mesh

available to help
guide meshing:
Difficult to get a good mesh
with complex wavy curves

Mesh is improved

Edge splits can be further

moved interactively
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 Mesh connections

• For sheet models, connections can be defined as

“Mesh connections”
– Options include similar options as other connections
– ―Mesh connections‖ will be created at mesh time (rather
than as CE in solver)

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 Mesh Connections

• “Create Automatic Connections”

– Automatic connections are created

Displays result from

mesh connections

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 Mesh Connections

• After meshing, user can also look at mesh connectivity

– Automatic connections are created

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 Named Selections

• Named Selections allow users to assign a

name to one or more selected entities in DM
or AM
– The Named Selections used in DM can be
transferred to AM by allowing in the Workbench
options (Tools/Options/Geometry Import) before
open a DM session
– All entities within a Named Selection must be of
the same topology
– Easy to reselect groups that will be referenced
often
– Named selections are automatically exported to
solver modules
– Named Selections can be applied to the entities
of the same size, type or location, by using
new selection options New in AM 13!. See the
Appendix at the end for details

‗Named Selection‘ groups can be imported from DesignModeler

and other CAD systems

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 Enhanced - Named Selections
New option to define selection by worksheet

Worksheet allows set of actions to build up a

named selection based on a criteria(size,
location, type, coordinate system, convert etc.

Able to quickly define criteria when

creating from Graphics Window

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 Named Selections

• Named Selections can be applied to selected geometries

• Named Selections can be applied to a set of entities of the
same size, location or type by using the filter Apply geometry
items of same

804 faces selected in

New in AM13! one click!
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 Sizing : Advanced Sizing Function

ASF : Off ASF : Curvature

• Only edge sizes are • Determines the Edge and
determined based on Face sizes based on
curvature and are ‗Curvature Normal Angle‘
controlled by the span • ‗Curvature Normal Angle‘
angle center is the max angle b/w
• Rest of the mesh is adjacent Face normals
generated with global • Finer Curvature Normal
element size Angle creates finer surface
Curvature or proximity is mesh
not considered for face
and volume meshing
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 Sizing : Advanced Sizing Function
(Contd…)

ASF : Proximity ASF : Proximity & Curvature ASF : Fixed

• Controls the mesh • Combines the effect of • Constant mesh size through
resolution on proximity ‗Proximity‘ and ‗Curvature‘ out
regions in the model size function • No refinement due to
curvature or proximity in the
• Fits in specified number
model
of elements in the narrow More computational • Surface mesh is generated
gaps time due to combined with specified Max Face Size
• Higher Number of Cells effect of Curvature and • Volume mesh is generated
Across Gap creates more Proximity with specified Max Size
refined surface mesh

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 Sizing : Bodies of Influence
Bodies of influence (BOI)
• Lines, surfaces and solid bodies can be used to refine the mesh
• Accessible when ASF is On

Line BOIs

Surface BOI Solid BOI

Without BOIs

The ‘Body of Influence’ itself will not be meshed

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 Baffle Surface

Use of Baffle surface to ensure atleast

2 layers of thickness on a thin model
meshed with tetra

Without baffle surface

2 layers created with baffle surface

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 Inflation

Add more layers through thickness of a thin

model that cannot be meshed with sweep

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 Defeaturing

• Removes small geometry features meeting the tolerances

using Pinch or/and Automatic Mesh Based Defeaturing
controls in order to improve the mesh quality. Not all
meshing methods can take advantage of these controls
• Pinch Tolerance control removes small features at the
mesh level depending on the Pinch Tolerance value
provided. ANSYS Meshing offers global and manual pinch
controls
• Automatic Mesh Based Defeaturing (AMBD) when it is On
features smaller than or equal to the value of Defeaturing
Tolerance are removed automatically

AMBD Off AMBD On With Pinchs

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 Pinch

• Pinch control removes small features (edges or narrow

regions) at the mesh level
• The Pinch feature works on vertices and edges only. Faces
and bodies cannot be pinched
• The Pinch feature is supported for the following mesh
methods:
– Patch Conforming Tetrahedrons
– Thin Solid Sweeps
– Hex Dominant meshing
– Quad Dominant Surface Meshing
– Triangles Surface meshing

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 Pinch: Vertex-Vertex
• Vertex-vertex „Pinch controls‟ will be created on an edge with
length less than the specified tolerance

Will pinch out the slave

geometry into the master
geometry

Mesh without Pinch Mesh with Pinch

Control Control

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 Pinch: Edge-Edge
• Edge-Edge „Pinch controls‟ will be created on any face for
which two edges are within the proximity of specified
tolerance

Will pinch out the entire or a

portion of the slave geometry into
the master

Mesh without Pinch Mesh with Pinch

Control Control

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 Connectivity Repair Tools
Quickly connect sheet models

• DM: Automatic extensions

On closer inspection
Cleanup of geometry
can be manual, due
to tolerances.
Use pinch controls to
quickly fine tune
models

• Mechanical/Meshing: Pinch controls

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 Mapped Face Meshing: Vertex
Type
• ‗Side‘, ‗Corner‘ and ‗End‘ controls for vertices, to define strategy for Mapping

Vertex Type Intersecting Grid Lines Angle Between Edges

End 0 0° — 135°
Side 1 136° — 224°
Corner 2 225° — 314°

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 Mapped Face Meshing: Example
E

E
E E S
E
E S E
E E E

Appropriate definition of vertices and edge grading

results in a good structured mesh

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 Mapped Face Meshing: Radial No.
of Divisions
• If face is defined by two loops, then the ―Radial Number of Divisions‖ field
is activated
– Specify the number of divisions across the annular region
– Useful for creating number of layers across an annulus

Mapped face is swept to create

pure hex mesh

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 More automated mapped mesh

• Option to find mappable faces:

– These faces can be put into a mapped face control to
provide better guidance for mesher

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 Shell Modeling Improvements

• Seam welding
– Edge/Mesh connectivity display
– Mesh connections
– Edge/Face pinch controls

Displays result from mesh

connections

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 Improved Default Surface Mesh

• Default surface mesh improvements:

– advanced size functions to improve
mesh transitions and orthogonality

12.1 Defaults

13.0 Defaults

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 Shell Meshing: Example
New in AM 13.0!
• Edge colored by the number of connected faces
• Automatic generation of mesh connections
• Mesh connectivity can be shown also after meshing
• Ability to find mappable faces

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 Surface Meshing with Inflation

• Quad mesh with Inflation Inflation can be applied on the

selected edges or named selections
New in AM 13.0!

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 Sweep Meshing
• Example:
– Src/Trg Selection - Rotational sweep for sector like geometry

Target Face

Manual Selection
Source Face

Sweepable bodies Sweep Mesh: Wedge

and Hex elements

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 Sweep Meshing

• Example:
– Src/Trg Selection – Automatic Thin

Sweepable Body Automatic Thin Thin Sweep Mesh

Multiple source faces Selection

For multibody parts only one sweep number of divisions is

allowed for Automatic or Manual Thin sweep method

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 Need for Multizone

• The MultiZone mesh method is a new meshing method

introduced in ANSYS 12.0 to extend sweeping capabilities to a
larger range of problems:
– Limitations with Sweep Method:
• Only Single Source to Single Target
• Requires geometry decomposition for multiple sweep paths
• No defeaturing within Sweep method
• High memory requirements
• Can only inflate source face

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 MultiZone Meshing

• Based on blocking approach used in ANSYS

ICEM CFD Hexa
– Automatically decomposes geometry
• Uses structured and unstructured blocks
• Can have multiple source and target faces
• Depends on settings of Free Mesh Type
– Structured blocks are meshed
with Hexa or Hexa/Prism
– If Free Mesh Type is set to other MultiZone Mesh
than Not Allowed then
unstructured blocks are meshed
with Tetra, Hexa Dominant or
Hex Core based on the selected
method
• Program Controlled inflation New
in AM13.0!
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 MultiZone Meshing

• Control:
– Src/Trg Selection - Automatic

Geometry for MultiZone Details View of MultiZone Mesh

Meshing MultiZone Method

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 MultiZone Meshing

• Control:
– Src/Trg Selection - Manual

Geometry for MultiZone Cut section of MultiZone

Meshing Details View of
Mesh
MultiZone Method

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 MultiZone Meshing

• Control:
– Local Defeaturing Tolerance
Sliver face in
the mesh

No Defeaturing

Small face
Geometry with a ignored in the
sliver face mesh

Using Defeaturing

– Maybe also controlled with global

defeaturing tolerance New in AM 13.0!

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 MultiZone improvements

• Program Controlled Inflation

– With default of smooth transition inflation

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