Section 9

Mesh Cleanup

Mesh Cleanup

Mesh cleanup

CAD models can have features like chamfers, fillets that are not desired.

If the CAD model is not good, it is possible to generate a mesh that has,

Holes in it (fails water tight test),

Elements overlapping/intersection,

Bad element quality.

Holes have to be filled and overlapping elements to be removed before a volume

mesh can be generated.
To generate a good tet-mesh, the tri-mesh quality should be reasonably good.

Assembly of CAD models is done by first converting them to a mesh model followed
by imprint operations. The imprint operation can result in very poor quality elements.

SimLab has tools to

Display the failed elements (element intersection and holes).

Automated and manual mesh cleanup tools.

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Mesh Cleanup

Mesh error display tools

The meshing tool bar has functions that can be used to locate errors in a mesh

Free Edges

Elem Intersection

Quality Test

Free Edges

This option will display Free and non-manifold edges in the selected model

Free edge: A tri-element that does not share its edge with an adjacent trielement. These are coloured Orange

Non-manifold edge: A tri-element that shares it edge with more than 2

other tri-element. These are coloured Yellow

The display will add a layer of adjacent elements around the Free and NonManifold edges, to improve the visibility.

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Free Edge Display

Free Edge

2 elements missing in the

Free Edge command will display the free

surface mesh

edges in Orange and 2 layers of elements

around the free edges

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Non Manifold Edge Display

Free Edge

Non-manifold edge

3 elements meet along the

Free Edge command will display the free

edge of the cube

edges in Orange and the non-manifold edges

in yellow. In addition 2 layers of adjacent
elements are displayed

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Element Overlap

There is a zero area

Elem Intersection shows the adjacent 3

triangle with nodes 46, 47

elements are intersecting

and 57

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Element Overlap

For the model in the previous page, if we check the Aspect ratio, the maximum value is
infinity. Id the display button is selected all tri-elements with aspect ratio greater than 20 will
be displayed. A layer of adjacent elements will also be displayed. Otherwise it will be hard to
see the zero area triangle.

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Mesh Cleanup Tools

There are several tools to cleanup a mesh
Automated cleanup

Fill Hole

Fill Crack

AutoTriClean Improves the aspect ratio of a tri-mesh

Manual cleanup

Create Element

Split

Swap

Collapse

Equivalence

Combine 2Tris to Quad

Split Quad to Tris

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Create Elements
Select three nodes to create an element. On the selection of the third node, an element
is created and the element layers around it are updated.

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Split

This tool helps to split an element along its edge.

An error shown in this picture would cause the Element intersection. .

Select the edge to be split.

After edge splitting the nodes will be equivalenced, by default.

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Split
Before Split

After Split

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Swap

This is used to swap an element edge to improve the mesh.

Instead of deleting and creating the elements, a swap operation is performed.

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Collapse

In certain instances, there will be very narrow elements which will affect
the quality of Tri elements and reflect badly in the quality check. These
elements can be collapsed to get a good quality mesh.

In these cases Collapse tool will be useful.

After collapse
short edge

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Collapse

Select the node which is on the element edge to be collapsed.

Select the element edge to be collapsed.

Click Apply Button.

The element will be collapsed to the node selected.

In the picture shown above, the narrow elements causes poor quality of the mesh.

When collapsed, the quality becomes better.

The quality is improved now.

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Equivalance

Equivalence joins two nodes within tolerance to form a single node and thereby
eliminates Free edges.

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Free Edge Display

Select the two nodes and specify the tolerance. Then click Apply to join the nodes.

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Free Edge Display

The nodes are joined and the free edge is removed.

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Combine 2 Tri to Quad

The automated quad-meshing code might not create all quads but leave few tri elements.

This tool helps to manually convert the tris to quads.

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Delete Element
This option is used to delete (Tri/Quad) elements. Solid elements connected to the
surface element will also get deleted.

Before Deleting

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After Deleting

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