Draft Quality & High Quality Mesh SOLIDWORKS 2020 – New!

New in SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2020 it is possible to define Draft Quality mesh elements or High Quality mesh elements for each individual solid body in the simulation study creating a hybrid mesh.  This new capability will be helpful in saving your meshing resources.  It gives you more control on which solid body you can apply either a Draft or High Quality element type too.

To apply a Draft Quality or High Quality mesh locate the solid body from your Simulation Design Tree and right-click on the body.  You will have the option “Apply Draft Quality Mesh” or “Apply High Quality Mesh” depending on what setting you have chosen in your general mesh settings.

Upon creating the mesh, you will get the below popup message.  Selecting “No” will allow you to mix element quality types creating a hybrid mesh.  Notice the assigned Draft Quality solid body mesh is characterized by a different color.

Hybrid Mesh and Linear Static Studies

As of SOLIDWORKS Simulation 2020, hybrid mesh is only supported for linear static studies with solid bodies only.  If your study has shell or beam elements, the option will not appear in the right-click menu.  Excluding the bodies for these element types from the analysis will enable the feature.  If you include an excluded shell or beam element solid body you will be given a popup notification of resetting the hybrid mesh to whatever the global setting is set to.

Using hybrid mesh results from a linear static study is supported as inputs for dependent study types such as:

• Submodeling
• Pressure Vessel
• Design Studies
• Fatigue Simulation studies.

Interested in learning more about what’s new in SOLIDWORKS 2020, check out our collection of videos here.