Volume Meshing

Volume mesh or "solid meshing" uses three dimensional elements to represent fully 3D objects, such as solid parts or sheets of material that have enough thickness and surface variety that solid meshing makes more sense than 2D shell meshing.

Engineering Solutions builds 4- and 10-noded tetras, 6- and 15-noded pentas, and 8- and 20-noded hexa elements. Tetras can be built in the Edit Element panel by hand or by using the Tetramesh panel. Pentas and hexas can be built in any of the following panels:

Drag	Drags a group of two dimensional elements along a vector to create solids.
Edit Element	Builds elements by hand.
Line Drag	Drags a group of two dimensional elements along a line.
Linear Solid	Creates solid elements between two dimensional elements.
Solid Map	Builds solid elements between nodes, lines, and surfaces.
Solid Mesh	Builds solid elements between a variable number of lines.
Elem Offset	Creates solid elements by offsetting a group of two dimensional elements normal to the surface formed by the group of two dimensional elements
Spin	Spins a group of two dimensional elements about a vector to create solids.
Split	Propagates split hexas.
Tetramesh	Fills with tetra elements a volume that is enclosed by tria elements or surfaces.

Note:

By default, first order linear elements are generated when the functions in these panels are executed, but second order parabolic elements may be generated by changing the element order in the mesh subpanel of the Options panel.