Contents
What does smoothing a mesh do?
Smoothing is used to improve quality of 2D mesh by adjusting the locations of element corners (nodes). Depending on the chosen method and mesh geometry the smoothing can actually decrease the quality of elements and even make some elements inverted.
What is mesh smoothness?
Mesh smoothing, like mesh extraction, is an operation that should be performed fast enough to enable real-time adjustment of parameters. As an example, Laplacian smoothing is controlled by two parameters, namely the weighting factor and the number of iterations.
Why do I need to smooth out my mesh?
The MESH_SMOOTH area contains design nodes, surface nodes that are not design nodes and inner nodes. In many cases it is desirable to adjust the surface nodes (in proximity of the design nodes) in the mesh smoothing to achieve a smooth transition between the design area and remaining area.
How is mesh smoothing used in FE models?
Mesh smoothing is an element-based algorithm, i.e., the MESH_SMOOTH area is processed element by element. For FE models with relatively numerous elements in relation to the number of degrees of freedom (tetrahedral mesh), the computing time of the optimization module can sharply increase in comparison to the computing time of the FE analysis.
What kind of elements can be used in mesh smoothing?
Only the following element shapes are allowed as MESH_SMOOTH elements: TRIA, QUAD, TETRA, HEXA and PENTA (with or without mid-side nodes). If the user-defined element group contains disallowed elements, a system-defined element group by the name of _ELEM is generated. The disallowed elements are removed in this group.
What is the default setting for mesh smoothing?
All surface nodes of the MESH_SMOOTH area that are neither design nodes nor limited by restrictions are interpreted as free surface nodes. FREE_SF=FIX,0 is set by default, i.e., the free surface nodes cannot be moved during mesh smoothing.