HyperMesh and BatchMesher
Automesh Panel
HyperWorks Desktop Applications >HyperMesh>User's Guide>HyperMesh Panels>HyperMesh Panels Listed Alphabetically: Automesh Panel
Location: The Automesh panel can be accessed from the menu bar by clicking
Mesh>Create>2D Automesh, or by pressing the F12 function key.
The Automesh panel is used to generate a mesh of plate elements using surface geometry or existing shell elements to define the mesh area.
Panel Usage
The options in the panel can be set in any order that you feel comfortable using. Moving from subpanel to subpanel will not cause you to lose work. When finished making all your selections, start the meshing process using the mesh button on the right side of the panel.
?Set the panel mode by selecting the appropriate subpanel
?Select the meshing method by setting the entity selector to surfs or elems
?Make the required element criteria settings
?Set any algorithm options
?Select the area to be meshed using the entity selector and any extended selection methods desired.
The unmeshed and failed selection buttons on the right side of the panel
Note: can be used to make pre-defined surface selections if desired.
Use the interactive image below to see the various options on each subpanel. To start, click either elems or surfs in the upper left corner. To reset the image, click the return button.
Subpanels and Inputs
The Automesh panel contains the following subpanels:
Size and Bias
Size and bias meshing is a very flexible and powerful meshing method. A minimum of inputs are required for the element criteria settings. The algorithm options can set preferences on how to handle certain situations when encountered in the geometry. When using existing finite elements as the basis for mesh generation, feature recognition settings allow the mesher to break up the areas defined by the selected elements into logical groupings with mesh controls set for each group boundary.This meshing mode works interactively or automatically. In interactive mode, a great deal of manual control is presented via the Secondary Automesh panel during the mesh generation stage. Interactive meshing allows you to control mesh size and element type, and to set different mesh generation algorithms and test element quality on a surface-by-surface basis. The resulting modified mesh can be updated at any time, giving immediate feedback as to the effectiveness of the change. When meshing in the automatic mode, the mesh will be generated using only the settings, criteria and options set in the Automeshpanel.
Size and biasing produces a mesh with consistent element size. If meshed interactively, the number of elements (element density) node spacing (biasing), element type and mesh style can be modified for each surface face and edge.
Panel Inputs Input Action entity selector Set to use surfaces or existing finite elements to define the area to mesh. Extended entity selection options are available to populate the selection. features When using existing finite elements as a basis for automeshing, feature recognition is used to define logical faces. Use this switch to determine how the automesher treats features: ?connected features automatically detects features based on the specified feature angle and make additional effort to void any \ It works similarly to auto detect features, but includes a more rigorous check to combine small areas and avoid creating features that end abruptly or do not connect to any other features. ?auto detect features automatically detects features based on the specified feature angle. In some cases this can create ?feature edges allows you to pick surface edges in the model to preserve as features. ?lines allows you to pick lines in the model geometry to preserve as features. mesh mode toggle - interactive / automatic Interactive mode will expose the interactive Automeshing secondary panel once the meshing has started. Automatic mode uses only the settings and selections made in the panel to complete the meshing process. element size Enter a floating point numeric value for the average element size. The length of any active (shared or free) surface edge will be divided by this number to determine the number of elements to place along that edge. mesh type Select quads, trias, mixed, R-trias, Quads only, or advanced to specify the type of element to use in building meshes. ?Mixed uses quads primarily, but inserts trias when making density transitions, resulting in improved mesh quality. ?Quads attempts to use quads only--however, at least one tria element must be created if the sum of the element densities around the perimeter of the face or surface is odd. The sum of element densities on the perimeter of the lower surface is odd, resulting in a tria as indicated. Adjusting the element densities while meshing interactively can usually elimate all tria elements.