Hypermesh Quality Tutorials
Hypermesh Quality Tutorials
0 Tutorials
Quality
HyperWorks
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HyperMesh 8.0 Tutorials
Quality
Penetration - HM-3320.......................................................................................................34
Tools
The edges panel can be accessed:
• On the Checks menu, select Edges
• On the Tool page, click edges
The edges panel allows you to find the free edges in a group of elements, find "T" or discontinuous
connections in a group of elements (any edges connected to three or more elements), display
duplicate nodes, and equivalence duplicate nodes. Free edges found in your model are displayed in
red. You can use equivalence to remove the duplicate nodes, based on a tolerance which you
specify. The preview equiv function is available to allow you to see which nodes are removed when
the equivalence function is selected.
Exercise
This exercise uses the model file, cover.hm.
Step 2: Review the model’s free edges to identify shell element connectivity
problems.
1. Go to the edges panel.
2. With the comps selector active, select any element from the graphics area.
The component containing the element is selected.
3. Click find edges.
Red, 1-D elements are displayed. They are organized into the new component named ^edges.
A red 1-D element is created along each shell element edge that is free; one or more of the
element edge’s nodes is not shared by the adjacent elements.
Note: For a component name whose first character is ^, the component and its contents is
not written to the input file when the model is exported.
4. On the View menu, click Utility Menu.
A sphere, is created on nodes having a distance between each other equal to or less than
the specified tolerance.
3. Notice that for this exercise’s model, a sphere is not created on every node along all of the red,
free edges, which do not belong. A larger tolerance must be specified to identify the rest of the
nodes.
4. For tolerance =, increase its value until all 96 nodes are identified as shown in the image below.
Be careful not to increase the tolerance value to too much. Although the 96 nodes will be
identified, an excessively large tolerance value may collapse elements when the identified nodes
are equivalenced.
5. Click equivalence.
The 96 coincident nodes are equivalenced.
6. Rotate and observe the model to see that the mesh still looks as it should and no elements are
collapsed.
7. Click delete edges.
The red, free edges and their component ^edges are deleted.
8. Remain in the edges panel.
4 HyperMesh 8.0 Tutorials – Quality Altair Engineering
Step 5: Display the element normals and adjust them to point in the same
direction.
1. Go to the normals panel.
2. With the comps selector active, select one element from the graphics area.
The element is highlighted briefly to indicate that the component to which it belongs is selected.
Step 6: Review the quality of the elements using the check elems panel.
1. Go to the check elems panel.
2. Go to the 2-d sub-panel.
3. Verify that jacobian < field is set to 0.7.
4. Click jacobian to determine if any elements have a jacobian of less than 0.7.
Elements having a jacobian of less than 0.7 are highlighted.
5. Notice that several elements on the triangular rib and around the smaller of the two holes have a
jacobian of less than 0.7.
The header bar displays a message indicating how many elements failed this check.
6. In the graphics area, click on an element.
A window displays that lists each quality check result for the element.
7. Click any mouse button to close the pop-up window.
8. On the right side of the panel menu, switch from standard to assign plot.
9. Click jacobian to review again.
A legend for jacobian values appears and each element is colored accordingly. The red elements
have a jacobian less than the threshold, 0.7.
10. Verify that quads: min angle < is set to 45.
11. Click min angle to determine if any quad elements have an angle of less than 45.
Step 7: Re-mesh the elements on the rib using the automesh panel.
1. Go to the automesh panel.
2. Ensure that you are in the size and bias sub-panel.
3. Switch the entity selector to elems.
4. Toggle to interactive.
5. For element size=, type 3.5.
6. Select one rib element from the graphics area.
7. Select one element on the plane of elements perpendicular to the rib and in the same plane as
the rib’s shortest edge as shown in the image below.
9. Click mesh.
The meshing module appears.
10. In the density sub-panel, change the element density on the rib’s hypotenuse edge to 9.
11. Change the element density on the rib’s shortest edge to 5.
Step 8: Remove the tria elements from the rectangular plane of re-meshed
elements by first deleting the row of elements containing the trias.
1. On the Tool page go to the delete panel.
2. Ensure that elems is the active selector.
Elements to delete
Step 9: Stitch the gap that resulted from deleting the row of elements using
the replace panel.
1. On the 2D page, enter the replace panel.
5. Click return.
Step 10: Use the smooth panel to adjust the node placement on the
rectangular plane of re-meshed elements.
1. On the 2D page, enter the smooth panel.
2. Go to the plates sub-panel.
3. With the smooth: elems selector active, select an element on the rectangular plane of re-
meshed elements.
4. Select elems >> by face.
5. For iterations = specify 10.
6. Switch the smoothing algorithm from autodecide to shape corrected.
7. Click smooth.
8. Click return.
Step 13: For the same area of elements you focused on in the last step,
optimize element quality by simply clicking on nodes and elements.
1. On the 2D page, go to the qualityindex panel.
2. On the panel menu’s right side, switch view to optimize.
3. With the node optimize selector active, click on a few nodes of the mesh area you modified.
When a node is clicked on, it is reposition so that the elements attached to it have the best
possible quality based on the criteria specified in the qualityindex panel.
4. Click on the selector element optimize to make it active.
5. Click on yellow and red elements in the same mesh area.
When an element is clicked on, it is adjusted to have the best quality possible based on the
criteria specified in the qualityindex panel.
When you click on a red element, it may become yellow or black (no color assigned). When you
click on a yellow element, it may become black.
6. Click return.
Criteria table
In this panel, several QI values are computed: one for each element (not reported), one for each
criterion turned on, and the compound QI value that represents the overall quality of the 2D elements
displayed. Refer to the on-line help for the formulas used to compute these quantities. The compound
quality index is the summation of all the element quality indexes, and also the summation of all the
criteria quality indexes.
Strategy
The list below provides best tips and practices:
• Use the QI functionality on local models, not large structures with multiple parts
• Use the qualityindex panel to check the quality of the mesh
• Use the elem cleanup panel to amend and readjust the mesh
Exercise
This exercise uses the model file, quality_index.hm. The model is of a bracket with various
features such as holes and fillets. The bracket is meshed with a mixed mesh of tria and quad
elements. You will evaluate the quality of this mesh based on its quality index and make any
necessary improvements.
2. Update the quality criteria listed to the values specified in the table below:
After you modify the criteria, click "apply"; notice how elements in the model change color based
on the new criteria.
Note: The element size elem size value used in the min size and max length checks is
the target element size set in the global panel. This value can also be set by
loading a criteria file.
Alternatively, concentrate only on fail values if Advance Criteria Table if off. For
example, worst cannot be greater than fail if looking at min size.
Warning: When modifying criteria values, HyperMesh may reject some of the values you
insert as there needs to be a logical progression in values. For example, the fail
value for the min size check cannot be larger than the good value, so before
increasing this fail value, you may need to first increase the good value.
3. Select save as… from the criteria file editor’s file menu, and save the criteria file as
quality_index_2.criteria to your working directory.
4. Click the OK button in the criteria file editor to apply changes and close the editor.
6. Go to pg1 to review the comp.Q.I. = and # of failed = values and compare them to the values
found for the criteria file loaded earlier.
Both values have changed. The criterion on the minimum element size was tightened, while
those on the minimum and maximum quad angles were loosened. The result is a slight
decrease in the compound quality index value and a change in the number, and probably the
actual elements, that fail our criteria.
In this section you experimented with changing values for the criteria in the quality Index panel. You
reviewed how these changes affected the results for the mesh and the color-coding of elements, and
exported a criteria file for the new criteria.
Nodes to move
Observe how the compound quality index value and the number of elements that fail both
decrease as you fix this area of the mesh. The final mesh in this area should look similar to this:
Improved mesh
Edge to swap
The common edge is changed (connectivity change) and produces two new elements from the
nodes involved.
Improved area
In this section, you used the edit tools and its various functions to manually and interactively
improve one local area of the mesh. As you placed nodes and swap edges, you also monitored
changes to the compound quality index to measure how this number decreases as the quality of
the elements improves.
Elements to optimize
2. Use the element optimize function to improve the quality of the elements in this area.
Observe changes to the compound quality index value as you use this function.
Note: You may need to select multiple elements (not just the failing elements) multiple
times to obtain the best possible quality as each operation only considers the
element you select and the elements with which it shares nodes.
Improved mesh
Nodes to optimize
Resulting mesh
5. Correct any remaining bad elements by using one of the previously mentioned functions such as
element optimize.
In this section, you experimented with the various tools available in the qualityindex panel for
improving the quality of elements to ensure they meet quality requirements. While these tools are
very powerful in improving the quality of a mesh, it may not always be practical to try to fix numerous
elements in a model with this approach as only a few elements can be fixed at a time. These tools are
more useful for local than global areas.
Summary
In this tutorial, you learned how to:
• Evaluate the quality of 2-D elements using quality indexes
• Correct elements that fail the quality criteria
• Use the smooth panel to address numerous elements needing improvement
Tools
The penetration feature can be accessed by:
• On the Checks menu, click Penetration
• On the Tool page, go to the penetration panel
The penetration panel allows you to check the integrity of your model, visualize problem areas, and
importantly fix the problem areas. The three entities that can be checked are elements, components
and groups. Typically the group check would be for checking contact definitions (for example,
Abaqus/Ls-Dyna).
This panel allows you to check components for element penetration and intersection. More
importantly, you can correct your model. Penetration and intersection can be used individually or
collectively. Penetration is defined as the overlap of the material thickness of shell elements, while
Intersection is defined as elements that actually pass completely through one another.
Example of Penetration
Strategy
Use the following guidelines for conducting checks on models:
• Checks can be ran on both 2-D and 3-D elements, 2-D elements only, or 3-D elements only.
• The include self interference option includes components that bend and pass through itself
when checked on; this occurs rarely and is expensive when running the check. By default,
this option is off.
• The intersections only option or intersections and penetrations option is available.
• The ignore penetrations option caters to some specific solvers that do not allow zero depth
penetrations when initializing. By default, the check will always use the component
thickness.
• An additional option, specify thickness, allows you to assign a global thickness to all
components.
• An additional option, multiply thickness, allows you to multiply the existing thicknesses in
the model.
The results are displayed in a tree format for ease of display and are split into intersections and
penetrations with the number of components that are clashing in brackets. In the example above, two
components are intersecting and eleven components have material penetration. Expanding each tree
will provide more detail as to which components have failed. The columns (ID, Elems, Depth, Comps)
provide valuable information on which components IDs are involved, the number of failed elements,
the depth of penetration (not applicable for intersections), and number of components affected in the
penetration/intersection. Each of the columns can be sorted by clicking on the column header. At the
bottom of the tab area there is a message bar, which will detail: the status of the check, the number of
failed elements, and any warnings and errors as the checks are invoked.
The options button allows for the configuration of the display, automatic fixing, and depentration
vector and configuration of the tree display.
The fixing of penetrations and intersections falls into two categories: automatic and manual. For
penetration the fixing routine is automatic, for the intersections the fixing is manual. These capabilities
will be discussed in more detail in the tutorial.
Mode Description
2. Ensure that Display components with failed elements and Fit view to elements icons are
selected.
3. Under Intersections, click the component, Rocker Inner Panel RH. The screen will
automatically fit to the failed intersecting elements.
3. Ensure Elements from tree selection is selected – we will not pick any additional elements.
4. Ensure Move in normal direction is selected for the direction of movement.
5. Type 2 as the distance value.
6. Click the left arrow button twice and notice the selected elements moving in the chosen direction.
After the elements have been moved by a value of 4, they no longer intersect.
7. Click recheck and notice there are no intersections. Only 11 penetrations remain.
Important A dialog box displays that states: "Current results will be lost by rechecking the model.
Would you like to continue?" Click Yes. The penetration tab needs to be refreshed.
Alternatively, you can use the automatic fixing tools:
1. Load the file again, penetration_check.hm.
2. Run the Check on all components.
3. Highlight the Intersections directory in the penetration browser; notice that there are currently
two intersections.
4. Right -click to invoke the context-sensitive menu. Choose Automatic Intersection Fix – the
wrenches will turn green indicating that the fix was successful.
5. Run the Recheck – the intersections have been fixed.
3. Click on the visualization options to view the different types of results display for
the penetration.
Remember that the columns can be sorted. For example, if you were only interested in the worst
offending penetrations then sorting on the depth column will reorganize the tree structure (while
still retaining the parent/child relationship).
In this particular example, for component C-Pillar Bot Inner Panel RH there are 18 elements that
have failed (parent and child), the maximum penetration depth is 0.159 and there is only one
component penetrating.
In the example above component C-Pillar Bot Inner Panel RH was locked, notice how the lock symbol
appears multiple times to correspond with the multiple references to the same component. To unlock,
simply right click again and select "Unlock Component". For the purpose of this tutorial we will not be
using the lock functionality.
To fix the Penetrations in the model we will use the Iterative Fix:
1. Click Penetrations at the top of the tree. See below.
2. Right -click to bring up the menu and then click Automatic Recursive Penetration Fix.
Important A dialog box displays that states: "Model changes to specific tree items are not
possible once process is initiated. The Penetration tab will appear and disappear repeatedly
during the process. Would you like to continue?" Click Yes.
After the fixing has finished you will see that the penetrations have been fixed, there are now zero
present.