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Effects of Mesh Density on Finite Element Analysis

Conference Paper  in  SAE Technical Papers · April 2013

DOI: 10.4271/2013-01-1375

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Effects of Mesh Density on Finite Element Analysis
Yucheng Liu and Gary Glass
Univ. of Louisiana
ABSTRACT
In finite element analysis, mesh density is a critical issue
which closely relates to the accuracy of the finite element
models while directly determines their complexity level. This
paper presents a systematic study on finding the effects of
mesh density on the accuracy of numerical analysis results,
based on which brief guidelines of choosing the best mesh
strategy in finite element modeling are provided. Static,
modal, and impact analysis are involved in this study to
discuss the effects of element size in finite element analysis.
INTRODUCTION
In finite element analysis (FEA), the accuracy of the FEA
results and requested computing time are determined by the
finite element size (mesh density). According to FEA theory,
the FE models with fine mesh (small element size) yield to
highly accurate results but may take longer computing time.
On the contrary, those FE models with coarse mesh (large
element size) may lead to less accurate results but do save
more computing time. Also, small element size will increase
the FE model's complexity which is only used when high
accuracy is required. Large element size, however, will
reduce the FE model's size and is extensively used in
simplified models in order for providing a quick and rough
estimation of designs. Due to its importance, in generating
FEA models, the foremost problem is to choose appropriate
elements size so that the created models will yield accurate
FEA results while save as much computing time as possible.
The objective of this paper is to present guidelines for
choosing optimal element size for different types of finite
element analyses. In order to achieve that goal, in this study,
a series of static, modal, and impact analyses were performed
on thin-walled beam and plate models to reveal the effects of
the element size on the accuracy of the FEA results. An
2013-01-1375
Published
04/08/2013
Copyright © 2013 SAE International
doi:10.4271/2013-01-1375
explicit solver, LS-DYNA, was used for modeling and
analyses involved in this work [1].
BACKGROUND
A number of investigators have studied the effects of
elements size on the accuracy of numerical results of
different types of analysis and important conclusions have
been drawn from previous research. Brocca and Bazant [2]
presented a finite element study of the size effect of
compressive failure of geometrically similar concrete
columns of different sizes. It was observed from their
analyses that the increasing elements size caused reduction in
nominal strength. However, a quantitative analysis showing
the relationship between the elements size and the nominal
strength was still needed. Ashford and Sitar [3] evaluated the
accuracy of the computed stress distribution near the free
surface of vertical slopes as a function of the element size. A
parametric study was carried out comparing stresses
computed using FEA to those obtained from a physical model
composed of photoelastic material. It was found that for a
slope height H, an element height of H/10 is adequate for the
study of stresses deep within the slope. However, for cases
where tensile stresses in the in the vicinity of the slope face
which are critical, element heights as small as H/32 are
necessary. Saouma et al. [4] discussed size effect in nonlinear
finite element analysis with a metal-reinforced ceramics
composite material. In their study, a size effect investigation
was numerically performed and the range of crack sizes was
presented, for which linear elastic fracture mechanics,
nonlinear fracture mechanics or plasticity-based models were
applicable. Masakazu [5] conducted a numerical analysis of
the size effect on the shear strength of RC beams through
tow-dimensional nonlinear FEA, which was applied to the
simulation of RC members in flexure and shear failure. Three
RC beam models with different sizes were analyzed and the
size effects on strain of reinforcement, strain of concrete,
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descriptive mode, and crack situation were observed from the (finest mesh) divisions (Fig. 1). Von mises stress and bending
simulation and discussed. Perillo-Marcone et al. [6] assessed deformation yielded from each model were calculated and
the effect of mesh density on material property discretization compared to study the influence of element size on the static
and the resulting influence on the predicted stress distribution analysis results. Static analysis results and comparisons are
through analyzing a three-dimensional, quantitative computed listed in Table 2. In that table, it is assumed that the FE model
tomography based FE model of a proximal implanted tibia. with the finest mesh generated the most accurate results and
Significant variations were observed in the modulus percentage approximate errors were calculated by comparing
distributions between the coarsest and finest mesh densities. other results to the most accurate ones.
Poor convergence of the material property distribution
occurred when the element size was significantly larger than Table 1. Steel material properties
the pixel size of the source CT data. From those results, they
found an optimal element size of 1.4 mm on the contact
surfaces which was enough to properly describe the stiffness,
stress and risk ratio distributions within the bone for that
particular case. Zmudzki et al. [7] discussed the influence of
mesh density on the results of FE model analysis of
mechanical biocompatibility of dental implants. It was found
that the increasing of mesh density leads to an overestimation
of loading stresses values and furthermore to an unjustified
increase of pillar's diameter. At the other hand, too large
elements might lead through an underestimation of loading
stress level, to overloading atrophy of bone tissue or to
implant loss. From that work it can be found that a guideline
of choosing appropriate element size for certain finite
element analysis is highly demanded. Roth and Oudry [8]
touched the influence of element size on the accuracy of
dynamic analysis results and they mentioned that for dynamic
analysis, the minimum number of element required for
correct simulation is according to the loading case and
material properties. Li et al. [9] investigated the sensitivity of
the structural responses and bone fractures of the ribs to mesh
density in order to provide guidelines for the development of
FE thorax models used in impact biomechanics. It was Figure 1. FEA steel plate model (a) coarsest mesh (b)
demonstrated in their research that rib FE models consisting finest mesh
of 2000-3000 trabecular hexahedral elements (weighted
element length 2-3 mm) and associated quadrilateral cortical Table 2. Static analysis results and comparisons
shell elements with variable thickness more closely predicted
the rib structural responses and bone fracture force-failure
displacement relationships observed in the experiments.
Based on the previous work and achievements, a systematic
investigation is conducted here to fully discuss the size effect
on simulation accuracy of static, modal, and impact analysis
for fundamental structural components such as plates and
beams.

STATIC ANALYSIS
Static analyses were performed on a rectangular steel plate
with the dimension 300 mm × 200 mm and a thickness of 3
mm. Material properties of the steel are listed in Table 1.
During the analyses, one end of the plate was fully
constrained and a 1 N·m moment was applied at the other end
for a duration of 1 second. 10 time steps were used to record Several observations were made by comparing those results.
the data so that 10 data points were collected during the (1) The errors of bending deformation are far lower than the
analysis. A series of FE models were generated for that plate errors of von Mises stress. According to FEA theory, stresses
whose long side was meshed from 2 (coarsest mesh) to 160 are not predicted as accurately as the displacements because
they are calculated from the displacements and it is assumed
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that the stresses are constant over the element. (2) The
difference of von Mises stress generated from the model with
10 elements along the long side of the plate and from the
finest mesh model is less than 1%, which is acceptable in
engineering simulation. However the computing time for the
coarse mesh model is only 3 sec, which is less than 1/40 of
the time cost by the finest mesh model. It can also be
observed from Fig. 2 that when the number of elements on
the long side is higher than 60, the increase of mesh density
does not significantly improve the accuracy of von Mises
stress any more. Such phenomenon was also observed in
comparing other static analysis results. (3) Fig. 4 compares
the bending deformation yielded from the coarsest mesh Figure 4. Bending of (a) coarsest mesh model (b) finest
model (with 2 divisions) and the finest mesh model (with 160 mesh model
divisions). From that figure it can be found that even the
coarsest mesh model generated a bending deformation close
to the finest mesh model (error = 0.22%), it failed to display a IMPACT ANALYSIS
smooth and continuous bending mode because its less After static analysis, impact analyses were carried out on a
number of elements. An FE model with finer mesh is still thin-walled steel beam with a square cross section, whose
needed to correctly simulate the bending behavior of the steel dimension is 120 mm × 120 mm and wall thickness is 3 mm.
plate. (4) It can be concluded that for static analysis, the FE During the analyses, this beam impacted a rigid wall at 15
model whose longest side is meshed by 10 elements can give m/s and buckled. A series of FE models were generated for
us optimal combination of accuracy and efficiency. that beam whose axial direction was meshed from 2 (coarsest
mesh) to 120 (finest mesh) divisions. The crash time was set
as 0.01 seconds. Impact force, absorbed energy, and global
displacement were computed for each FE model and
compared in Table 3, where the approximate error was
calculated based on comparing each result to the results
yielded from the finest-meshed beam model. Fig. 5 displays
the crushed model with coarsest mesh (2 divisions), medium
mesh (60 divisions), and finest mesh (120 divisions). The
effects of elements size on the accuracy of important impact
analysis results are plotted through Figs. 6, 7, 8.

Table 3. Impact analysis results and comparisons

Figure 2. Element size vs accuracy for maximum von

Mises stress

Figure 3. Stress distribution of (a) coarsest mesh model

(b) finest mesh model
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Figure 5. Deformed beam models with (a) coarsest mesh,

(b) medium mesh, and (c) finest mesh
Figure 8. Element size vs accuracy for maximum
displacement

After comparing the listed results, following declaration can

be made. (1) The errors generated during the impact analyses
were higher than those yielded from the static analyses. This
is because that the impact analysis dose involve fast, transient
loading and it much more complicated than the static
analysis. (2) Similar to the static analysis, the finite element
models predicted the displacement more accurate, which was
due to the same reason. (3) In general, the errors in predicting
the absorbed energy were far lower than those in estimating
the impact force. A possible explanation is that the absorbed
energy is related to the mass and instantaneous velocity of the
beam models, while the impact force is related to their mass
and instantaneous acceleration. There was no error in
calculating the mass because different FE models faithfully
Figure 6. Element size vs accuracy for maximum impact represent the volume and density of the steel thin-walled
force beam model. However, the velocity is calculated as the first
time derivative of the displacement and the acceleration is
calculated as the first time derivative of the velocity,
therefore, the errors generated in calculating the velocity are
transferred to the step of calculating the acceleration. Due to
this reason, it is understandable that the FE models predicted
the absorbed energy more accurate than the impact force. (4)
In predicting the impact force, the beam model has to be
meshed into 80 divisions longitudinally so that the
approximate error would drop to below 10%, an accepted
level in impact simulation [10]. However, to reach the same
accurate level, the beam model only has to be meshed into 20
divisions for predicting the absorbed energy and maximum
displacement. (5) Similar to Fig. 4, it can be seen from Fig. 5
that in impact analysis, the FE model with fewer number of
elements could not correctly reflect the real progressive
buckling mode of the thin-walled steel beam. In other words,
a certain number of finite elements are required to correctly
Figure 7. Element size vs accuracy for maximum
simulate the crash behavior and response of engineering
absorbed energy
structures during the impact analysis. (6) In conclusion, in
order to correctly simulate the crash process and predict
important impact results while saving as much computing
time, the thin-walled beam model has to be meshed into 80
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divisions along its axis. Table 3 also reveals that the optimal the modal analysis, the computing time is not an important
FE model with 80 divisions along its axis only took less than issue.
1/10 of the computing time requested by the finest mesh
model. Table 4. Modal analysis results and comparisons

MODAL ANALYSIS
Finally, modal analyses were conducted on above plate and
beam models to determine their natural frequencies and mode
shapes during free vibration. It is common to use the FEA to
perform this analysis and the influences of the element size
on the modal analysis results are discussed here. In this study,
only the lowest frequencies are listed and compared for each
model because the lowest frequencies are related to the most
prominent modes at which the model will vibrate, dominating
all the other higher frequency modes. In performing the
modal analysis, the steel plate was constrained on its short
edge and the thin-walled steel beam was constrained at its
end. Table 4 only lists the lowest natural frequency calculated
for each finite element model. Fig. 9 plots the corresponding
mode shapes of the coarsest meshed plate model and the
finest meshed plate model. Fig. 10 displays the mode shapes
of the coarsest and finest meshed thin-walled beam model.

From the displayed results it can be seen that developed FEA

models correctly predicted the lowest natural frequencies,
with all the errors lower than 10%. The approximation error
yielded from coarse models such as the thin-walled plate
model with 5 divisions and the thin-walled box beam model
with 10 divisions are below 1%. This is because the modal
analysis results such as natural frequencies and mode shapes
of a model during free vibration are only depend on the
model's mass and stiffness matrix. An FEA model can
accurately predict its modal analysis results as long as it
faithfully represents the model's mass and stiffness. Fig. 9
displays mode shapes of thin-walled plate models with
different numbers of meshes. It is found that the FEA models
with different element size correctly plot the mode shape of
the thin-walled plate and predict the deflection of that mode
shape. Table 5 lists deflections of the mode shapes respect to
the lowest natural frequency of several FEA models, which
are very close to each other.

However, from Fig. 10 it can be seen that even though FEA

Table 5. Deflection of lowest frequency mode shapes of
thin-walled box models with coarse mesh can correctly
thin-walled plate models
compute the natural frequency values, nevertheless, in order
to closely simulate the mode shapes, more finite elements are
still required. It also deserves to be mentioned that the
computing times for the FEA models with different mesh
density are not listed in Table 4. This is because the finite
element modal analysis is very fast. To finish one modal
analysis, the coarsest mesh models took 1 second, the thin-
walled plate model with 140 divisions took 14 seconds and
the thin-walled box beam model with 120 divisions took 12
seconds. Therefore, in deciding the optimal element size for
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Figure 9. Lowest frequency mode of plate with different
element size
Figure 10. Lowest frequency mode of beam models with
different element size
CONCLUSION
In this study, the effects of element size on accuracy of finite
element models and simulation results were thoroughly
investigated through static analysis, impact analysis, and
modal analysis. It was found that for static analysis that
assumes steady loading and response conditions, each side of
a plate model should be discretized into 10 divisions in order
to obtain satisfied results (with approximation error < 1% in
our example) consuming less computer resources and
computing time. For impact analysis which involves fast,
transient loading and considers dynamic structural response, a
thin-walled beam model has to be meshed into 80 divisions
along its axis in order to simulate its crash response
efficiently and correctly (with approximation error < 10%).
For modal analysis, the selection of the best element size is
not very urgent because (1) the FEA models with less number
of elements can correctly predict the natural frequencies (with
approximation error < 1%) and (2) even the FEA models with
finest mesh cost no more than 20 seconds to complete a
modal analysis. Nevertheless, it is suggested to apply 10
divisions on the box beam models to correctly simulate their
mode shapes in lowest natural frequencies.
The presented results reveal that different types of structural
analysis require appropriate mesh generation schemes. The
optimal mesh density for static, impact and modal analysis
can be used as guidelines in creating other finite element
models for structural analysis, which will lead to accurate and
efficient computer simulations.
One deficiency of this study is that the authors did not
develop mathematical models to visually show the
relationships among element size, accuracy of results, and
computing time for different analyses. This is because that in
any type of analysis, more than one type of result will be
extracted and studied (this paper only lists a few type of
results as an example). As demonstrated in the paper, the
element size has different influence on different types of
results. Therefore, it is neither possible nor necessary to
derive mathematical models for each type of result to show
the influences of the element size. Another shortcoming of
the FEA models presented in this paper is that those models
use automatic mesh only. Advanced mesh techniques such as
adaptive mesh are not considered. Also, this paper only
discusses the structures with regular shape. The mesh strategy
recommended here can be applied to model more
complicated structures with irregular shapes and even
engineering assembly for further validation. In the future,
effects of adaptive mesh need to be considered in studying
the influences of element size on the accuracy of FEA results.
The present study can be applied to nonstructural problems
such as heat transfer problem and fluid flow problem.
REFERENCES
1. LS-DYNA Theoretical Manual, Livermore Software
Technology Corporation, May 2007.
2. Brocca M. and Bazant Z.P., “Size effect in concrete
columns: finite-element analysis with microplane model”,
Journal of Structural Engineering, 127(12), 2001,
1382-1390.
3. Ashford and Sitar, “Effect of element size on the static
finite element analysis of steep slopes”, International Journal
for Numerical Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, 25(14),
2001, 1361-1376.
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It may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means.
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4. Saouma V.E., Natekar D. and Sbaizero O., “Nonlinear

finite element analysis and size effect study in a metal-
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6. Perillo-Marcone A., Alonso-Vazquez A. and Taylor M.,
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7. Zmudzki J., Walke W. and Chladek W., “Influence of
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8. Roth S. and Oudry J., “Influence of mesh density on a
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