Automatic Mesh Quality Assessment

Coreform Cubit performs an automatic calculation of mesh quality which warns users when a particular meshing scheme or other meshing operation has created a mesh whose quality may be inadequate. These warnings are supplied in case the user forgets to manually check the mesh quality.

Coreform Cubit automatically calculates the SHEAR quality of hexahedral and quadrilateral elements and the SHAPE quality of tetrahedral and triangular elements. The SHEAR metric measures element skew and ranges between zero and one with a value of zero signifying a non-convex element, and a value of one being a perfect, right-angled element. The SHAPE metric also ranges between zero and one with a value of zero signifying a degenerate or inverted element and a value of one signifying a perfect, equilateral element. The quality of the mesh is then defined to be the minimum value of the shear metric for hexahedral and quadrilateral elements and the shape metric for tetrahedral and triangular elements, with the minimum taken over the elements in the mesh.

If the quality of the mesh is zero, the code reports "ERROR: Negative Jacobian Element Generated" to the command window. By default, if the quality of the mesh is positive but less than a certain threshold, the code reports "WARNING: Poorly-Shaped Element Generated" to the command window. Also reported in this case is the ID of the offending element, the value of its shear (or shape) metric, and the value of the threshold to which it was compared. The default value of the threshold parameter is 0.2. Users may change the threshold value by issuing the command

Set Quality Threshold <double=0.2>

The user may also change what type of message is printed in the case of a poor quality, but positive Jacobian mesh. This message can be printed as a warning (the default) or an error or can be turned off completely using the command

Set Print Quality { WARNING|Error|Off }

The above commands only affect the message generated for meshes with a quality greater than zero and less than the given threshold value; an error will always be generated for meshes with a quality of zero (that is, for meshes containing negative Jacobian elements).