Create Hex Mesh

Before you being, ensure that the solids have been partitioned so that they are either one directional or three directional mappable. Refer to, Partition Solids for Mappability.

Also, make sure you have an existing 2D mesh, which will be used to extrapolate the 3D solid map mesh.

This topic uses the General subpanel, but the Line Drag, Linear Solid, and Ends Only subpanels all draw from the same set of input controls. The Line Drag, Linear Solid, and Ends Only subpanels panels simply filter out the controls that do not apply to their mapping techniques.

Use the Line Drag subpanel to select a 2D mesh, and then select a line from the model geometry to use as the mapping direction.
Use the Linear Solid subpanel to select two existing 2D meshes and extrapolate a 3D mesh that connects them.
Use the Ends Only subpanel to select two opposing surfaces and one 2D mesh, then extrapolate the mesh between the surfaces.

You can omit the source, the destination, or the along geometry by setting either one of the entity selectors to (none). Only one of these selections can be set to (none); the other two selections are then required to define the volume to fill.

From the Mesh ribbon, 3D Mesh tools, click the Hex tool.

Figure 1.
Select the General subpanel.
For source geom, select a geometry type and then select the source geometry that defines the source face of the 3D volume.
- Choose surfs to select surfaces that define the source face of the volume/solid.
- Choose lines to select lines that define the periphery of the source face.
- Choose nodes to select multiple lists of nodes, each representing the periphery of the source face.
- Choose none if you do not want to define source geometry. The geometry inferred from the elems to drag is considered as source geometry.
Use the elems to drag selector to select the elements/mesh that correspond to the source face extruded to create the solid mesh.
For dest geom, select a geometry type and then select the destination geometry that defines the destination face of the 3D volume.
- Choose surfs to select surfaces that define the destination face of the volume/solid.
- Choose lines to select lines that define the periphery of the source face.
- Choose nodes to select multiple lists of nodes, each representing the periphery of the source face.
- Choose none if you do not want to define destination geometry.
Select elems to match.
- Choose elems to select elements on the desitnation surface that you wish the 3D mesh to match up with.
- Choose none to access the smooth dest checkbox, which when selected, smooths the mesh that is mapped on the destination face when your destination geometry varies greatly from the source geometry.
For along geom, select a geometry type and then select the geometry that defines the face of the 3D volume along which you wish to map the mesh.
- Choose surfs to select surfaces to define the mapping face of the volume/solid.
- Choose lines to select lines that define the periphery of the source face.
- Choose nodes to select a node list that defines a line along which to map.
- Choose mixed to select any combination of surfaces, lines, 2D elements/shell faces, and/or nodelist/nodepath. When elements are used, the mapped solid mesh maintains the nodal positions with selected elements. They can be equivalenced to have common nodes. While selecting nodelist/nodepath, each selection should represent an edge that connects the source and destination.
- Choose none if you do not want to define geometry.
For along parameters, define the parameters required for the mesh along the solid map.

This determines the number of elements along the depth of the mapping. If the size or density is set to "0", the element size/density is calculated based on the average element size of the source elements (elems to drag).
For along bias style, choose the type of biasing to use while creating nodes in the along direction.

The biasing style works in conjunction with biasing intensity. If intensity is "0", biasing is not applied.
In the intensity field, enter a biasing intensity.
Click mesh.

HyperWorks displays the progress of the solid map meshing process in the status bar. Upon completion, HyperWorks displays a report of the mesh quality. The element quality value reported is the worst scaled Jacobian in the mesh. The scaled Jacobian's value may range from 0.0 to 1.0(best). An elem's scaled Jacobian is a ratio of the elem Jacobian over the Jacobian of an ideal elem of the same configuration.