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Exercise
Step 2: Use the volume tetra mesher and equilateral triangles to create a tetra mesh for the cover.
1. Access the Tetramesh panel from 3D > tetramesh.
3. Set the entity selector to surfs and select one of the surfaces in the model.
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The connected surfaces are selected automatically
.
4. Verify that 2D type: is set to trias and 3D type: is set to tetras.
These control the type of element that will be created for the surface mesh and solid mesh of the part.
5. Select Elems to Current Comp to place the newly created elements in the current component collector.
6. Verify that the Use curvature and Use proximity options are not active.
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10. Take a moment to inspect the mesh pattern that the volume tetra mesher created.
Tetra mesh from the volume tetra subpanel and equilateral triangles (2D: trias).
Step 3: Use the volume tetra mesher and right triangles to create a tetra mesh for the cover.
You should still be in the Tetramesh / Volume tetra subpanel.
1. Select one of the surfaces in the model.
2. Switch 2D type: to R-trias.
4. Inspect the mesh pattern that the volume tetra mesher created.
5. Compare it to the first mesh you created and note the differences. The 2D type: R-trias setting tends to create tetra
elements with triangular faces that are right triangles (90-45-45 angles) while the 2D type: trias setting tends to create
equilateral triangles (60-60-60 angles).
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Tetra mesh from the volume tetra subpanel and right triangles (2D type: R-trias)
6. Click reject to reject the mesh.
Step 4: Use the volume tetra mesher to create a tetra mesh with more elements along curved
surfaces.
You should still be in the Volume tetra subpanel.
1. Select one of the surfaces in the model.
2. Activate the option, use curvature.
Additional parameters appear. The option, Use curvature, causes more elements to be created along areas of high
surface curvature. Thus, curved areas such as fillets will have more and smaller elements, which capture those
features with higher resolution.
3. For Min element size = specify 1.0.
4. Verify that Feature angle = is set to 30.
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Tetra mesh from the volume tetra sub-panel and the option use curvature active.
9. Click reject to reject the mesh.
Step 5: Use the volume tetra mesher to create a tetra mesh with more elements around small
features.
1. Select one of the surfaces in the model.
2. Activate the Use proximity option.
The Use proximity option causes the mesh to be refined in areas where surfaces are smaller. The result is a nice
transition from small elements on small surfaces to larger elements on larger, adjacent surfaces.
3. Click mesh to create the tetra mesh.
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Tetra mesh from the volume tetra subpanel with options Use curvature and Use proximity.
6. Click return to exit to the main menu.
Step 6: Prepare the display to tetra mesh the hub component using the standard tetra mesher.
1. Use the HyperMesh Model Browser to turn off the display of geometry for all components.
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Step 7: Review the connectivity and quality of the tria mesh to validate its integrity for the
standard tetra mesher.
Use the Edges and Check Elems panels to make sure that there are no free edges or very small angles in the tria shell mesh.
1. Access the Edges panel from tool page, then click on edges.
2. With the comps selector active, pick any tria element on the hub component.
A message in the status bar should state, "No edges found. Selected elements may enclose a volume."
This is desired as the tetra mesher requires a closed volume of shell elements.
4. Click return to exit to the main menu.
5. Access the Check Elements panel from tool pages, then click on check elems panel.
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Aspect ratio is the ratio of the longest edge of an element to its shortest edge. This check helps you to identify sliver
elements.
All of the hub’s shell elements pass the check; all of the elements have an aspect ratio less than 5.
8. Identify tria elements having an angle less than 20. (trias: min angle).
Step 8: Create a tetra mesh for the hub using the standard tetra mesher.
1. Use the HyperMesh Model Browser to set the current component to tetras. Right click on tetra component and then
click on Make Current, to make tetra component as current component.
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2. Access the Tetramesh panel from 3D page, and then click on tetramesh panel.
4. With the comps selector active under Float trias/quads to tetra mesh, select one of the hub shell elements from the
graphics area.
Using this option, HyperMesh will swap the diagonal for any pair of surface trias that will result in a better tetra mesh
quality. If you would rather keep the diagonal, see sub-step 5.
5. (Optional) To keep the diagonal as is, select the comps selector under Fixed trias/quads to tetra mesh.
6. Click mesh to generate the tetrahedral elements.
7. To view the tetra elements turn-off the mesh of hub component. (from model browser)
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If the minimum tria face angle is no less than 10°, then the mesh quality should be acceptable.
6. Identify elements having a tet collapse smaller than 0.2.
The tet collapse criteria is a normalized volume check for tetrahedral elements. A value of 1 indicates a perfectly
formed element with maximum possible volume. A value of 0 indicates a completely collapsed element with no
volume.
The message bar indicates that one element has a tetra collapse smaller than 0.2.
Step 10: Isolate the element with the tetra collapse smaller than 0.2 and find the elements
surrounding it.
You should still be in the Check Elements panel.
1. With 0.2 still specified for tet collapse, click tet collapse again.
The element that failed the tetra collapse check is saved in the user mark, and can be retrieved in any panel using the
extended selection menu.
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4. Access the Mask panel from the Display toolbar by selecting Mask ( ).
You can also press F5 on your keyboard to enter the Mask panel.
5. Set the entity selector to elems and select elems >> retrieve.
The element that was saved in the Check Elements panel is retrieved.
6. Select elems >> reverse.
Only the one tetra element that failed the tetra collapse check should be displayed.
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The layer of elements that is attached to the one displayed element is identified and displayed.
The layer of elements that is attached to the displayed elements is identified and displayed. The functionality of
unmask adjacent can be duplicated using the Find panel, find attached subpanel on the Tool page.
Step 11: Remesh the hub’s displayed tetra elements to improve their tetra collapse.
1. Access the Tetramesh panel.
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2. Go to the Tetra remesh subpanel.
Note that the re-meshing operation works on only one group of elements (one volume) at a time.
5. Click return to exit to the main menu.
7. Click tet collapse to find out if the tetra collapse has improved for the displayed elements.
The message in the status bar should indicate that the minimum tetra collapse is larger than the value reported before
the tetra elements were remeshed.
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8. Click return to exit to the main menu.
Summary
A tetra mesh has been created for both parts in the file. Different procedures for tetra meshing were used. Either method can
be used to mesh parts, depending on the needs of the analysis. Also, the tetra remesh function was used to show how to
quickly fix the quality of tetra elements
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