Overview

The mesh quality routines identify elements that fail quality tests. The purpose of the tests is to evaluate whether an element deviates significantly from its theoretical ideal. The quality tests include angles, aspect ratio, positioning of the midside node for higher order elements and the extent of warpage.

The function of the quality tests is to warn and inform the user of elements that may be an undesirable shape for analysis. There are no consequences for elements labelled as failures, for example, when attaching properties or writing input decks to analysis packages.

• Control
  The UTILITY SETUP QUALITY command allows the user to specify which quality tests to apply for each element type. There are default values for each quality criterion and these may be reset by commands or by reading in a batch file. The current quality criterion values can be inspected by the HELP STATUS QUALITY command.
• Tabulation
  The UTILITY TABULATE MESH QUALITY command will tablulate the elements that fail the quality tests. The table will indicate the quality criteria which have not been satisfied by the element.
• Display
  The LABEL MESH QUALITY command will display a symbol at the centroid of elements that fail a quality test. The symbol will indicate the quality test which failed. It is also possible to display at the centroid the number of failures encountered on a failed element.