Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex

A Seminar for FEMAP, NX Nastran and LS-DYNA Users

George Laird, PhD, PE | Principal Mechanical Engineer
 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS
WHAT WE ARE GOING TO COVER IN 45 MINUTES ............................................................................................................... 4
THE OUTLINE ....................................................................................................................................................................... 6
1. WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT TET OR HEX? ...................................................................................................................... 7
1.1 JUST A QUICK NOTE ABOUT STRESSES ...................................................................................................................................................................8
2. TETRAHEDRAL MESHING FUNDAMENTALS .................................................................................................................. 9
2.1 HOW IT TET MESHING WORKS ..............................................................................................................................................................................9
2.2 THE REAL WORLD .............................................................................................................................................................................................9
2.3 ONE-TWO-THREE – WHEN ONE UNDERSTANDS THE PROCESS ALMOST ANYTHING CAN BE MESHED ..................................................................................10
2.3.1 Mesh Fundamentals and How to Improve the Quality of Your Tet Mesh .......................................................................................10
2.3.2 Troubleshooting Bad Geometry: Brute Force Tet Meshing .............................................................................................................11
3. WHY WE HEX (PREDICTIVE ENGINEERING FEA CONSULTING SERVICES) .................................................................... 12
4. HEX MESHING FUNDAMENTALS ................................................................................................................................ 18
4.1 LET’S TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL ......................................................................................................................................................................19
4.2 BASIC HEXING: SUBDIVIDING .............................................................................................................................................................................20
4.3 LEVERAGING BASIC KNOWLEDGE ........................................................................................................................................................................21
4.3.1 What About Strange Geometry? ......................................................................................................................................................22
4.4 THE TEST PIECE (COULD YOU HEX MESH THIS CHUNK AFTER THE SEMINAR?) ............................................................................................................23
4.5 TROUBLESHOOTING .........................................................................................................................................................................................24
5. HEX WHAT IS HEXABLE AND TET THE REST ................................................................................................................ 25
6. SEMINAR Q & A .......................................................................................................................................................... 26

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

WHAT WE ARE GOING TO COVER IN 45 MINUTES

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

Let’s Sharpen Up Our Skill Set

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

THE OUTLINE
I. Why Do We Care About Tet or Hex?
II. Tet Meshing Fundamentals
a. How tetrahedral meshing of a solid works (surface inward)
b. Surface quality controls the tetrahedral quality
c. Simple checks
III. Hex Meshing Fundamentals
a. How hexahedral meshing of a solid works (everything is a six-sided block)
b. Sub-dividing complex solids (importance of surface pairing)
c. When to stop
d. Troubleshooting
IV. Hex What is Hex ‘able and Tet the Rest
V. Seminar Q & A

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

1. WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT TET OR HEX?

I’ll skip the lecture about good mesh / bad mesh and just get to the point about why hexing is has some advantages:

Simply Supported Bending = 12,000 Plate with Hole under Uniform Tension Kt = 3.0

Pros Cons
Tet is “easy” and for linear analysis hard to justify hex Tet is heavy (to fill a cube: 26 v 8 nodes)
Tet provides acceptable linear elastic stress results Often unsuitable for material nonlinear analysis
Good Tets = Good Stress (watch Jacobian – no free lunch) Can be unwieldy in large models that require normal
modes solution (e.g., PSD)

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

1.1 JUST A QUICK NOTE ABOUT STRESSES

www.FractureMechanics.org
Stress Flows
Stress (2D) in an isotropic solid can be described using
the Airy Function that satisfies the Biharmonic Equation:

Stresses around holes have stress concentrations of -1

and +3 under pure tension and +4 under pure shear

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

2. TETRAHEDRAL MESHING FUNDAMENTALS

2.1 HOW IT TET MESHING WORKS
Everybody does it the same: (i) surfaces are meshed with three-node triangular elements (FEMAP plot-only), (ii) the
surface mesh is “sealed” (nodes are merged and elements are checked) and (iii) the surface mesh is submitted to the a
solid tet mesher.
2.2 THE REAL WORLD
In this example, we will go through the operations to clean up bad geometry, use Mesh Preparation and then how to
debug a troublesome surface mesh

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

2.3 ONE-TWO-THREE – WHEN ONE UNDERSTANDS THE PROCESS ALMOST ANYTHING CAN BE MESHED
2.3.1 MESH FUNDAMENTALS AND HOW TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF YOUR TET MESH

▫ Pick a part and then start with a reasonable mesh size

▫ Read the messages and think a bit
▫ Investigate to see if it seems reasonable
▫ Try Mesh / Geometry Preparation / Mesh Size = ?
▫ What is it doing in the background?
▫ Check Mesh Quality?

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

2.3.2 TROUBLESHOOTING BAD GEOMETRY: BRUTE FORCE TET MESHING

▫ Try to be systematic
▫ Look at mesh
▫ Try Mesh Preparation
▫ Start ripping apart geometry
▫ Try Geometry / Solid / Cleanup
▫ Sometimes it is good’nough

No magic bullet - No perfect system – Still jobs for simulation engineers

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

3. WHY WE HEX (PREDICTIVE ENGINEERING FEA CONSULTING SERVICES)

Buckling Analyses

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

Bolt Preload Analyses (Contact Analysis) and Transient Thermal Analysis

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

Linear Dynamics (PSD, Sine Sweep, Shock Response) Analyses

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

Nonlinear Analyses (LS-DYNA)

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

Composite Analysis (LS-DYNA)

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

Because Hex is Efficient (Nastran, LS-DYNA and STAR CCM+)

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

4. HEX MESHING FUNDAMENTALS

Very old school – all geometry is six sided. Let’s go slow and do a block and see what we can learn

Let’s Start
Basic

Now Let’s
Break It

Solid 1 can not be hex meshed. Either Meshes on lateral

surfaces are not fully mapped or base and top surface
meshes do not match.

Concepts: Matched Surfaces, FEMAP is extruding between matched surfaces, mesh sizing can be edited (carefully)

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

4.1 LET’S TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL

It Works

Why?

Nope

Solid 1 can not be hex meshed. Either subdivide further, or specify a mapped mesh approach on one or more surfaces.
Solid 1 can not be hex meshed. Unable to identify the surfaces for the base and top of the mesh.

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

4.2 BASIC HEXING: SUBDIVIDING

The first step is recognizing a sub-dividable solid. When doing a “hex project”, I’ll make a custom toolbar with the
commands that I’ll be using frequently.

1 2 How It Works

3 4

The linking or pairing makes sense after you play with it for awhile….

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

4.3 LEVERAGING BASIC KNOWLEDGE

Let’s do the first baby step – now it seems too simple

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

4.3.1 WHAT ABOUT STRANGE GEOMETRY?

What I want to show is that, if one understands the theory behind the hex process, one can leverage the Meshing
Toolbox to encourage challenging geometry to hex along preferred paths. It can be tricky to debug and it took me a few
tries but if you truly understand the process, it will work as advertised.

It is two-step process:
▫ Look for
opportunities (sub-
divide)
▫ It works but a bit
“mesh ugly”
▫ Meshing Toolbox to
create clean
combined surface

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

4.4 THE TEST PIECE (COULD YOU HEX MESH THIS CHUNK AFTER THE SEMINAR?)
One can find this geometry in your FEMAPv1132 / Examples / Assembly.x_t

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

4.5 TROUBLESHOOTING

Symptom Solution
Most likely you have a small edge(s) or a silver surface. Use
It won’t hex but it has “six sides”?
Entity Locate in the Meshing Toolbox to find’em

Sometimes the underlying geometry is corrupt. Try

It looks hexable but it won’t hex and I have checked for Geometry / Solid / Cleanup and then try meshing the
small edges and slivers? opposing sides and Hex Mesh it using Mesh / Geometry /
HexMesh from Elements

The hex meshing process is dependent upon element

My subdivided assembly of blocks Hex Meshes and then I
quality. If a particular mesh size creates a “un-meshable
change the mesh size and some turn red?
surface” due to poor element quality, things will turn red.

FEMAP tries to match up curves between solids to the best

of its parametric ability. In rare occasions the parametric
I have large assembly and individual pieces hex but when I
sizing between two solids will be different. In this case, one
try to hex the complete assembly I get red blocks?
needs to set the curves manually (Mesh / Mesh Control /
Size Along Curve and specify Node Spacing as “Length”.

Analysis Errors
Most likely something didn’t merge. Turn on transparency
It looks great but generates negative pivot ratios
and look for un-merged surfaces or Free Edges

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

5. HEX WHAT IS HEXABLE AND TET THE REST

When you have the option, it can be effective to use a glued connection to join an easily hexed part of the model to
something that might take days to hex.

o Automatic Glued
Connection (?)
o Iterative Solver – 2
o Fast
o Stress Results show
max stress at 160ksi,
material yield is
100ksi.

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 Solid Geometry Meshing from Tet to Hex 2017

6. SEMINAR Q & A
More seminars at AppliedCAx.com

Thank you!
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