Ansys Explicit Dynamics

Module 04: Meshing

Release 2021 R2

Please note:
• These training materials were developed and tested in Ansys Release 2021 R2. Although they are
expected to behave similarly in later releases, this has not been tested and is not guaranteed.
• The screen images included with these training materials may vary from the visual appearance of a
local software session.

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 Learning Outcomes

• After completing this module, you will be able to

‐ Choose preferred element types and mesh controls to create efficient and accurate explicit dynamics
models

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 Module 04 Topics

• Element Formulations • Mesh Sizing

• Solid Element Formulations ‐ Global
‐ Local
• Shell Element Formulations
• Defeaturing
• Beam Element Formulations
• Meshing of Rigid Bodies
• Explicit Mesh Requirements
• Workshop 04.1: Mesh Study
• Physics Preference
• Mesh Metric: Characteristic Length
• Mesh Methods
‐ Solid Bodies
‐ Surface Bodies
‐ Line Bodies

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 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

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 Solid Element Formulations

• Hexahedral Solid Elements

‐ 8 node, exact volume integration, constant strain element
• Single quadrature point with hourglass stabilization
• Activated when Analysis Settings > Type = Program Controlled, High Velocity
• Activate manually: Analysis Settings > Solver Controls > Hex Integration Type = Exact
‐ 8 node, approximate Gauss volume integration element
• Same as LS-DYNA formulation (Hallquist)
• Some accuracy is lost for faster computation
• Single quadrature point with hourglass stabilization
• Activated when Analysis Settings > Type = Low Velocity, Efficiency, Quasi Static, Drop Test
• Activate manually: Analysis Settings > Solver Controls > Hex Integration Type = 1 pt Gauss

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 Solid 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 Tet
• Activated when Analysis Settings > Type = Efficiency
• Activate manually: Analysis Settings > Solver Controls > Tet Integration = Constant Pressure
‐ ANP (Average Nodal Pressure)
• Enhanced tet element (Burton, 1996)
• Overcomes volume locking problems
• Exhibits Shear locking
• Can be used as a majority mesh element
• Activated when Analysis Settings > Type = Program Controlled, High Velocity
• Activate manually: Analysis Settings > Solver Controls > Tet Integration = Average Nodal Pressure
‐ NBS (Nodal Based Strain)
• Enhanced tet element (Ansys, 2010)
• No volume or shear locking
• More accurate for low velocity applications where bending is dominant
• Activated when Analysis Settings > Type = Low Velocity, Quasi Static, Drop Test
• Activate manually: Analysis Settings > Solver Controls > Tet Integration = Nodal Strain

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 Solid Element Formulations

• Tetrahedral Solid Elements

Pull-out test simulated using both

hexahedral elements (top) and ANP /
SCP tetrahedral elements (bottom).
Similar plastic strains and material
fracture are predicted for both element
formulations used.
HEX datapoint is supplied as a standard to compare against
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 Solid 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) are

‐ Hexahedral
‐ SCP Tetrahedral
‐ ANP Tetrahedral
‐ NBS Tetrahedral

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 Shell Element Formulations
3
• Shell Elements
2
‐ Quadrilateral shell element E
• Belytschko-Tsay, with Chang-Wong correction
• Co-rotational formulation, bi-linear, 4 noded 4
• Single quadrature point with hourglass stabilization
• Isotropic and layered orthotropic formulations 1

• Number of through thickness integration points (default 3) can be specified in Analysis Settings > Solver Controls > Shell
Sublayers
‐ Triangle
• C0 Triangular Plate Element (Belytscho, Stolarski and Carpenter 1984) 3
• Should be used in quad-dominant meshes
2
• Thickness is a parameter (not modeled geometrically) E

‐ Actual thickness can be rendered

‐ Time step is controlled by the element dimension, not by thickness
1

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 Shell Element Formulations

• Shell Element Examples

Snap-through

Shear Buckling

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 Beam 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

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 Explicit Mesh Requirements

• 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 changes 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 longer duration transients

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 Physics Preference

• Explicit Dynamics will always use a Physics Preference of “Explicit”

• When starting with a Mesh Component System, manually set Physics Preference to
“Explicit”

Physics Preference = Explicit

Set Manually
Physics Preference = Explicit
is automatically set

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

Mechanical Kept Low Fast

CFD Dropped Medium Slow

Electromagnetic Kept Medium Fast SMOOTHING

Explicit Dropped High Slow High

Fast

TRANSITIONS

Slow
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 Mesh Metric: Characteristic Length

• Recall that the minimum element size in the model will dictate the required time step
for Explicit Dynamics
• Two ways to visualize those elements having greatest effect on the time step:
‐ Mesh Display Style = Characteristic Length
‐ Mesh Metric = Characteristic Length

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 Mesh Methods

Many Mesh Methods are available:

• Solid Bodies
‐ Automatic
‐ Tetrahedron
‐ Hex Dominant
‐ Sweep
‐ Multizone
‐ Cartesian
• Surface Bodies (Shells)
‐ Quadrilateral Dominant
‐ Triangles
‐ Multizone Quad/Tri
• Line Bodies (Beams)
‐ Automatic
The Preferred Methods for Explicit are…

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 Mesh Methods: Solid Bodies

• Sweep methods for generating pure hex meshes – Preferred over Hex Dominant!
‐ Sweep
• Sweepable bodies will use this method automatically
• 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 multiple source faces

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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), or
‐ With Multizone, it is meshed automatically!

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 Mesh Methods: Solid Bodies

• Solid bodies that will not Hex Mesh will mesh with Tetrahedron Elements
• Tetrahedron
‐ Advantages
• An arbitrary volume can always be filled with tetrahedral
• Can be generated quickly, automatically, and for complicated geometry
‐ Disadvantages
• Element and node counts are higher than for a hex 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
3 mm Hex Mesh
21,562 Elements
1,680 Elements
Time Step = 5.55 x 10-5 ms
Time Step = 3.154 x 10-4 ms

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 Mesh Methods: Solid Bodies

• There are two Tetrahedron Methods Available

‐ Patch Conforming
• Default Tetrahedron Mesher for non-sweepable solids
• Also Default when Mesh Method → Tetrahedrons is specified
• All Faces, Edges, Vertices of the geometry are respected during mesh generation
• Not preferred for Explicit Dynamics
• Consider mesh defeaturing instead to enable hex meshing or improve tet sizes

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 Mesh Methods: Solid Bodies

• There are two Tetrahedron Methods Available

‐ Patch Independent
• Available when Mesh Method → Tetrahedrons is specified
• Faces, Edges, Vertices not always respected
• Element size defined by:
▪ Maximum Element Size
• Combine with Feature Angle and Defeature Size
• Patch Independent may be removed from future software versions!
• Consider mesh defeaturing instead to enable hex meshing or improve tet sizes

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 Mesh Methods: Solid Bodies

• If Patch Independent Method is no longer available,

similar results can be achieved with Mesh Defeaturing

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 Mesh Methods: Solid Bodies

• Summary
‐ Hex meshes are more efficient than Tetrahedron meshes but are not always easy to generate
‐ 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
‐ Avoid the Hex Dominant mesh method
• Will create pyramid elements which are automatically split into two tetrahedral elements on solve
• Resulting internal tet elements can have poor quality and a very small characteristic length (decreasing the time step)
‐ Patch Independent Tetrahedron meshes are usually the best alternative to swept Hex meshes
• If Patch Independent Method is removed from future software releases, consider Mesh Defeaturing

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 Mesh Methods: Surface Bodies (Shells)
Quad Dominant MultiZone Quad/Tri Triangles
(Default) (More Options) (Not Recommended)

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 Mesh Methods: Line Bodies (Beams)

• Method is Automatic
• Cross-section is assigned
• Can be visualized as line segments or showing cross-section (Display > Thick Shells and
Beams
• Use Sizing controls to obtain uniform element size
• Time step controlled by the element length, not by dimensions of cross-section

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 Mesh Sizing: Global

• Recommendations for Global Mesh Sizing

‐ Define an Element Size instead of accepting the Default
‐ Use Adaptive Sizing = No
‐ Capture Curvature = No
‐ Capture Proximity = No
‐ Consider
• Mesh Defeaturing = Yes
• Enable Washers = Yes (for more uniform mesh size around holes of Surface Bodies)
‐ Mesh size determines the time step used for the analysis—always be in
control of the time step

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 Mesh Sizing: Local

• Recommendations for Local Mesh Sizing scoped to Body, Face or Edge

‐ Type = Element Size
‐ Type = Factor of Global Size
‐ Capture Curvature = No
‐ Capture Proximity = No
‐ Behavior = Hard or Soft
• Additional recommendation for Local Mesh Sizing scoped to Edge
‐ Type = Number of Divisions
‐ Bias Type = Optional

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 Mesh Sizing: Local

• Element Size Examples

‐ Element Size specifies average element edge length for bodies, faces or edges
‐ Often will also improve mesh quality

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 Mesh Sizing: Local

• Number of Divisions Example

‐ Specifies number of elements on edge(s) of bodies or faces
‐ Bias Type
• For uniaxial tension or compression cases, may be used to improve shape of fully deformed element

Aspect ratio improves upon

deformation

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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
• Consider using Ansys SpaceClaim to perform defeaturing
‐ Refer to the Introduction to Ansys SpaceClaim course for details
• For simple defeaturing within Mechanical, several options are available:
‐ Mesh Defeaturing (discussed previously)
‐ Pinch
‐ Virtual Topology

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 Defeaturing

• Mesh Defeaturing Example

‐ Turn on Mesh Defeaturing and set Defeature Size to 1.5 mm (nodes in region of feature are 1 mm
apart)

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 Defeaturing

• Pinch Example
‐ Condenses Secondary geometry into Primary geometry
‐ Use Tolerance to achieve desired effect

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 Defeaturing

• Virtual Topology Example

‐ Insert Virtual Topology at Model branch
‐ Select annular surface and larger adjacent surface and right-click → Insert → Virtual Cell …

Small annular surface results in

small elements

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 Meshing of Rigid Bodies

• For Rigid Bodies, the mass and inertial properties are derived from the discretized
mesh representation along with the material density
• Rigid Body Behavior in Mesh Details > Advanced
‐ Full Mesh (Default): Rigid bodies are meshed in full using whatever size controls are applied in the
model

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 Meshing of Rigid Bodies

• When Rigid Body Behavior mesh setting is set to Dimensionally Reduced:

‐ Reduces the number of elements in the Rigid body by limiting the mesh only to those surfaces
included in defined Contact regions (the Rigid Bodies can NOT be included in Body Interactions)
‐ Mass and inertia properties are taken from the properties of the geometry (properties taken from the
mesh may be more accurate if the mesh resolves the geometry well)
‐ May offer solution efficiencies over the Full Mesh Behavior due to quicker contact searching

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 Workshop 04.1: Mesh Study

• Goal:
‐ Investigate various meshing techniques on a blender carafe while noting the effect on Characteristic
Length
• Procedure:
‐ Restore the project archive
‐ Apply various meshing techniques
‐ Compare with using simplified geometry

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End of presentation