Lecture 6

Explicit Meshing
16.0 Release

Introduction to ANSYS
Explicit STR
1 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015
 Element Formulations
• Element formulations for Explicit Dynamics
– Solid elements
• Hexahedral
– Exact volume integration
– Approximate Gauss volume integration
• Pentahedral
– Automatically converted to a degenerate hex
• Tetrahedral
– SCP (Standard Constant Pressure)
– ANP (Average Nodal Pressure)
– NBS (Nodal Based Strain)
– Shell elements
• Quadrilateral
• Triangular
– Beam (Line) element
2 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015
 Element Formulations

Hexahedral Solid Elements

• Two Formulations:
– 8 node, exact volume integration, constant strain
element
• Single quadrature point with hourglass stabilization
– 8 node, approximate Gauss volume integration
element
• LS-DYNA formulation (Hallquist)
• Some accuracy is lost for faster computation
• Single quadrature point with hourglass
stabilization
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 Element Formulations
SCP Tet
Tetrahedral Solid Elements
– SCP (Standard Constant Pressure)
• “Textbook” 4 noded iso-parametric tet element
• Designed as “filler” element for hex-dominant meshes
• Exhibits Volume and shear locking
– ANP (Average Nodal Pressure)
• Enhanced tet element (Burton, 1996)
ANP Tet
• Overcomes volume locking problems
• Exhibits Shear locking
• Can be used as a majority mesh element
– NBS (Nodal Based Strain)
• Enhanced tet element (ANSYS, 2010)
• No volume or shear locking
• More accurate for low velocity applications where bending is dominant
4 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015
 Element Formulations
Tetrahedral Solid Elements

Pull-out test simulated using both

hexahedral elements (top) and
ANP tetrahedral elements
(bottom).
Similar plastic strains and material
fracture are predicted for both
element formulations used.
5 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015
 Element Formulations
Tetrahedral Solid Elements
• Nodal Based Strain (NBS) formulation avoids both volume and shear locking
– Particularly helpful in low velocity impacts, especially where limited deformation occurs
Beam Bending example:
Formulations (from left)
• Hexahedral
• SCP Tetrahedral
• ANP Tetrahedral
• NBS Tetrahedral

6 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015

 Element Formulations
Shell Elements 3

Quadrilateral shell element

2
• Belytschko-Tsay, with Chang-Wong correction E

• Co-rotational formulation, bi-linear, 4 noded

4

• Single quadrature point with hourglass stabilization

1
• Isotropic and layered orthotropic formulations
• Number of through thickness integration points can be specified 3

Triangular shell element E 2

• C0 Triangular Plate Element (Belytscho, Stolarski and Carpenter 1984)
• Should be used in quad-dominant meshes
Thickness is a parameter (not modelled geometrically)
• Actual thickness can be rendered 1

• Time step is controlled by the element dimension, not by thickness

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 Element Formulations
Shell Elements - Examples

Snap-through
Shear Buckling

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 Element Formulations
Beam (Line) Elements
• 2 noded Belytschko-Schwer resultant beam formulation
• Extended to allow large axial strains
• Resultant plasticity implemented for range of cross
section types
• Cross-section is a parameter (not modelled
geometrically)
– Actual cross section can be rendered

– Time step is controlled by the element length, not by

dimensions of cross-section

9 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015

 What is required of Meshes for Explicit Applications?

Uniform element size (in finest zoned regions)

• Smallest element size controls the time step used to advance the solution in time
• Explicit analyses compute dynamic stress waves that propagate throughout the entire mesh
Element size controlled by the user throughout the mesh
• Not automatically dependent on geometry
– Implicit analyses usually have static region of stress concentration where mesh is refined
(strongly dependent on geometry)
– In explicit analyses, the location of regions of high stress constantly change as stress waves
propagate through the mesh
• Mesh refinement is usually used to improve efficiency
– Mesh transitions should be smooth for maximum accuracy
Hex meshing preferred
• More efficient
• Sometimes more accurate for slower transients
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 Using Meshing in Workbench

Physics Preference

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 Physics Preference
Physics Preference Option Sets the following automatically ...
Low
Solid Element Midside Smoothing Transition
Nodes Default

Mechanical Kept Low Fast

CFD Dropped Medium Slow

Electromagnetic Kept Medium Fast

Explicit Dropped High Slow

Smoothing
Fast High

Transitions

Slow
12 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015
 Meshing Methods
• Solid Bodies
• Automatic
• Tetrahedron
• Hex Dominant
• Sweep
• Multizone
• Surface Bodies (Shells)
• Quadrilateral Dominant
• Triangles
• Multizone Quad / Tri
• Line Bodies (Beams)
• Automatic
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 Mesh Methods – Solid Bodies

Tetrahedron
• Advantages
– An arbitrary volume can always be filled with
tetrahedral
– Can be generated quickly, automatically, and for
complicated geometry 3 mm Hex Mesh
• Disadvantages 1,680 elements
– Element and node counts are higher than for a hex Time Step = 3.154 E-4 ms
mesh with a similar mesh density
– Time Step is smaller than for a hex mesh with a similar
mesh density
– Generally not possible to align the cells with a flow
direction
– Not well suited for thin solids or annuli due to non-
isotropy of geometry and nature of element 3 mm Tet Mesh
21,562 elements
Time Step = 0.555 E-4 ms
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 Mesh Methods – Solid Bodies

• Tetrahedron - Patch Conforming

• Default Tetrahedron Mesher
• All Faces, Edges, Vertices of the geometry are
respected during mesh generation
• Delaunay Method
• Not good for Explicit Dynamics

Curves in Geometry are Reflected in the Mesh

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 Mesh Methods – Solid Bodies

• Tetrahedron - Patch Independent

• Recommended Tet mesher for Explicit
• Faces, Edges, Vertices not always respected
• Octree Method
• Element size Defined By
• Maximum Element Size
• Approx. number of Elements

Max. Element Size = 2.5 Curves in Geometry NOT reflected in the Mesh Max. Element Size = 1.0 mm
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 Mesh Methods – Solid Bodies

Hex Dominant
• Useful for meshing bodies that cannot be swept
• Recommended for meshing bodies with large interior
volumes
• The hex-dominant meshing algorithm creates a quad-
dominant surface mesh first, then pyramid and
tetrahedral elements are filled in as needed
• Always check interior of mesh for good element structure
• “Control Messages” will appear to warn you if volume may not
be suitable for hex-dominant meshing
Solid Model with Hex dominant mesh :
Tetrahedrons – 443 (9%)
Hexahedron – 2801(62%)
Wedge – 124 (2%)
Pyramid – 1107 (24%)
Note: Pyramid elements are converted to two Tets in Explicit Dynamics. This
17 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015 can result in small elements that control the time step. Avoid it if possible.
 Mesh Methods – Solid Bodies
Sweep methods for generating pure hex meshes
– Sweep
• Sweeping from a single source face to a single target face
• You only have 1 source and 1 target
• The sweep direction changes along the path
– Multizone
• Attempts to automatically slice geometry into sweepable bodies
• Supports multi-source and multi-target

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 Mesh Methods – Solid Bodies
Try MultiZone when
• you are meshing single body parts that are too complicated for Sweep
• you have multiple sources and targets you need to respect
Example:
• Using Sweep, the single body part (left) must be manually sliced into a multibody part
containing five bodies (center) to obtain a pure hex mesh (right)
• With Multizone, it is meshed automatically!

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 Mesh Methods - Solid Bodies

• Automatic (Patch Conforming/Sweeping)

• Sweepable bodies are automatically
swept
• If a solid body cannot be swept it will be
meshed using the Patch Conforming
Tetrahedron method (not good for
Explicit)
• Automatic is the default Method for Explicit
• Ensures that preferred Hex meshes are generated whenever bodies can be swept
• If any bodies are not swept, the tetrahedron meshes generated for these
bodies should be re-meshed by inserting a method that generates a Patch-
Independent Tetrahedron mesh for those bodies
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 Mesh Methods – Solid Bodies

Summary
• Hex meshes are more efficient than Tetrahedron meshes, but are not always easy to
generate.
• Patch Independent Tetrahedron meshes are usually the best alternative to swept
Hex meshes.
• The hex dominant mesh method will create pyramid elements which are
automatically split into two tetrahedral elements on Solve, increasing the number
of elements while decreasing element size (and hence the time step). Try to avoid
using this method.
• MultiZone can produce excellent hex meshes if the method is able to identify and
create a swept mesh for the geometry, and the element size is chosen carefully.
Always worth trying.

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 Meshing Methods – Surface Bodies (Shells)

Quad Dominant Triangles MultiZone Quad / Tri

(not recommended for explicit)

Use sizing controls to obtain uniform element size

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 Meshing – Line Bodies (Beams)
Method is Automatic

Cross-section is assigned

Can be visualized as line

segments or showing
cross-section

Use sizing controls to

obtain uniform element
size

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 Mesh Sizing
• The Physical Preference also defines a default
element size for Explicit.
• Never use this
• Always define the element size yourself
• Determines the time step used for the analysis
• Always be 100% in control of this

Global Sizing

Scoped Sizing
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 Scoped Mesh Sizing
Sizing can be applied to
• Body
• Face
• Edge
• Vertex

Three options
• Element Size (Body, Face, Edge)
• Number of Divisions (Edge)
• Sphere of Influence (Body, Face, Edge,
Vertex)

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 Scoped Mesh Sizing

Element Size
• Element Size specifies average element edge length for bodies, faces or
edges

– Often will also improves mesh quality

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 Scoped Mesh Sizing

Number of Divisions

• Specifies number of elements on edge(s) of bodies or faces

• Bias Type
– Edge is discretized to include a bias towards one end, both ends, or the center
– Bias Factor is ratio of largest element size to smallest element size
– Effect of the Bias Factor is displayed

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 Scoped Mesh Sizing

Number of Divisions
• Behavior
– Soft (default)
• Size control and Number of Divisions used is controlled by the meshing algorithm
– Affected by proximity, curvature and local re-meshing during meshing process
– Hard
• Specified Number of Divisions is fixed and cannot be changed by the meshing
algorithm
– Increases likelihood of mesh generation failure
– Can have positive or negative effects on mesh quality

No Edge Sizing Soft Hard

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 Defeaturing

• Defeaturing reduces the influence that geometric features have on the

meshing process
• Avoids generating small elements that may force explicit calculations to
run with a small time step
• Two Meshing options are available for Defeaturing
• Virtual topology
• Defeaturing tolerance

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 Defeaturing
• Virtual Topology: Automatic Method
– Behavior: Determines how aggressively the faces and
edges are merged
– Custom Behavior
• Curvature, Feature Angles
• Aspect Ratio, Contact Angle, Edge Angle,
Shared Boundary Ratio
• Virtual Topology: Repair Method
– Behavior: Determines the type of repair to be performed
• Repair All
• Repair Small Edges
• Repair Slivers
• Repair Small Faces

30 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015

 Virtual Topology

Default mesh, no VT Automatically Default mesh, with VT Multizone mesh, with VT

dT = 4e-9s created virtual dT = 7.4e-9s dT = 2.3e-8s
entities

Virtual Cell

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 Defeaturing Tolerance

• Defeaturing Tolerance works for all meshing methods including multizone

method (previously it was only implemented for patch independent tet
meshing)

Without Defeaturing With Defeaturing Tolerance

Tolerance mesh ignores small feature
Much better element size

32 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015

 Improved Meshing Performance
• From R15.0, multiple CPUs are used in Meshing
– Accessed from Tools -> Options -> Meshing in Mechanical GUI
– Number of CPUs for Meshing Method: any value from 0 to 256.
• Number of CPUs to be used for meshing operation
• 0, use all available CPUs
– Number of CPUs for Parallel Part Meshing: any value from 0 to 256.
• Number of CPUs to be used for parallel part meshing
• For MultiZone Quad/Tri, Patch Indept Tetra, and MultiZone methods
• 0, use all available CPUs
– Performance varies
with model

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 Workshop 8 – Meshing Options

• Goal:
Familiarisation with the meshing methods
available in ANSYS Meshing
• Procedure:
Load the Explicit Dynamics project with the
geometry of a piston assembly
Use virtual topology options to mesh the geometry
and assess their effect on element count and
sizing
Solve the model in Explicit Dynamics and compare
the running time resulting from the different
meshing options

34 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. April 15, 2015

 Workshop 9 – Can Crush
Goal:
Crush an aluminum beverage can and allow it to “springback”

Procedure:
Create an Explicit Dynamics (ANSYS) Analysis System Project
Select the units system and define the material properties
Import, modify, and mesh the soda can geometry
Define analysis settings, boundary conditions, and external loads
Solve and review the results

Walkthrough
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 Workshop 10 Oblique Impact Simulation
Goal:
Perform oblique impact / penetration analysis (with
erosion)
Procedure:
Create an Explicit Dynamics (ANSYS) Analysis System
Project
Select the units system and define the materials
Import and mesh the armor geometry
Define analysis settings (including erosion), initial
conditions, boundary conditions and body interactions
Solve and review the results

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 Appendix: DM & Meshing – Bodies and Parts
Example:
1 part, 1 body DM

• Entire solid meshed as one entity

–No internal surfaces

Mesh

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 DM & Meshing – Bodies and Parts
Example:
DM
3 parts, 3 bodies

• Each solid meshed independently

–Nodes are not shared

–Nodes do not line-up Mesh

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 DM & Meshing – Bodies and Parts
Example:
DM
1 multi-body part, 3 bodies / solids

• Each solid meshed independently, but node connectivity among solids is

preserved

Mesh

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 DM & Meshing – Shared Topology Method
Specified for each Part (in DM)
• Applied at common boundaries of all Bodies in the Part
Options
• Automatic (default)
– Nodes are merged on boundaries (Bodies are bonded)
• None
– Bodies are meshed independently
• Separate nodes generated on each Body surface
• Allows grouping bodies together for organizational purposes, or so that
mesh controls (such as Match Control) may be applied to bodies within the Part
• Imprint
– Imprints bodies in a part with each other.
• Often used in Mechanical applications when well-defined contact regions are desired among the
Bodies.
• None + Match Control preferred for Explicit Applications

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 DM & Meshing - Using Slice
Slicing is performed in DesignModeler
• Bodies must be frozen

Bodies can be sliced

• by plane or surface
• by extruding, revolving, lofting or sweeping sketches

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 DM & Meshing – Slicing By Surface

Slice 1

Default Mesh
(not sweepable) Original Geometry

Slice 2

Sliced Geometry Mesh after

slicing
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 DM & Meshing – Slicing By Surface

Combining Bodies into one Part ensures mesh-matching

Mesh with 3 Bodies Mesh after

in 3 Parts combining 3 Bodies
into 1 Part
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 Running Time for Different Mesh Types
Method Nodes Elements Time Step Run Time (min) Ratio
Single Body 3603 15902 2.553E-8 0.075 9.38

Three Bodies 6688 5250 1.087E-7 0.010 1.25

Multi-Body 6501 5250 1.087E-7 0.008 1.00*

Part

Element Size: 1.0 mm for all meshes

* Best DM+Meshing Method: HEX Mesh in Multi-Body part
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 DM & Meshing – Slicing By Extruding Sketches

Sketch

“O-grid” Mesh
after slicing

Default Mesh

Extrude
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 DM & Meshing – Slicing By Extruding &
Sweeping Sketches

Sketch & Extrude

“O-grid” Mesh
Sketch & Sweep
after slicing
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 DM & Meshing – Advanced Hex Meshing

• 2 mm Tet Mesh
– 604,152 elements!
– DT = 3.346 E-5 ms

• 2 mm Hex Dominant
– 61,747 elements
– DT = 3.1 E-6 ms!

• 2 mm Swept Hex Mesh

– 44,000 elements
– DT = 5.668 E-5 ms

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 DM & Meshing – Match Control
Overlapping Meshes and Contact
• Explicit Dynamic Analyses require that there are no initial
penetrations at contact surfaces, so nodes on surfaces that
are initially in contact must match
– If necessary, use Match Control for Swept Hex meshes and
Patch Independent Tetrahedron meshes.
• Group Bodies into single Part
• Select None for Shared Topology Method

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 DM & Meshing - Spot Welds
Define points on source geometry at location
of the spot welds

Corresponding points on target geometry are

generated

• Source geometry and target geometry can be in

contact or separated

Meshing ensures that nodes are generated at

the spot weld points

• Explicit Dynamics uses nodes to define solid or

breakable joints
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 DM & Meshing - Mid-Surface Creation
Mid-Surface

• Reduces 3D geometry of constant thickness to a simplified “shell”

representation

• Automatically places surface body at mid point between 3D face

pairs

• Allows shell element type

meshing in Explicit Dynamics

3D Model Mid-Surface representation

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 DM & Meshing – Surface Extension
Surface Extension
• Creates a surface extension based on edge selection
• Often required after Mid-Surface operation

A thin solid model The model is converted to

a mid plane surface model.
The result is a gap at the Extending the circular edge
intersection of the 2 parts closes the gap
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 DM and Meshing - Cleanup & Repair of CAD
Edge and Face Merge for Model Simplification
• Merge edges and faces based on angle criteria to simplify the
model

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 DM and Meshing - Cleanup & Repair of CAD
• Repair

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 DM and Meshing - Cleanup & Repair of CAD
Face Delete Patch healing

Natural healing

Selected faces for delete

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 FEModeler

• Import
• Finite element (FE) model from a NASTRAN bulk data file or ABAQUS
Input file.
• FE mesh from Workbench Meshing or Advanced Meshing
• Archived ANSYS data created using the CDWRITE command.
• Navigate and visualize the data contained in the model.
• Generate a geometry from an FE Model using the Geometry Synthesis
feature.
• Create named components based on element selections.
• Generate an ANSYS, NASTRAN, or ABAQUS input deck for downstream
analysis.
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 FEModeler
Display Element Statistics in FEModeler

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 FEModeler
Convert to Geometry (Geometry Synthesis / Skin Detection)

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 FEModeler
Pass Geometry to Meshing

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