Quality parameter

1. Length (min.)
Minimum element lengths are calculated using one of two methods
The shortest edge of the element. This method is used for non-tetrahedral 3-D elements.
The shortest distance from a corner node to its opposing edge (or face, in the case of tetra
elements); referred to as "height to closest node".

Height to Closest Node (HCN) is calculated differently for different element types.
o For triangular elements:

For each corner node (i) Hypermesh calculates the closest (perpendicular)
distance to the ray including the opposite leg of the triangle, h(i).
HCN = min(hi) * 2/sqrt(3.0).
The scaling factor 2/sqrt(3.0) ensures that for equilateral triangles, the HCN is
the length of the minimum side.
o For quadrilateral elements:

For each corner node, HM calculates the closest (perpendicular) distances to the
rays containing the legs of the quadrilateral that do not include this node.
The figure above depicts these lengths as red lines.
Height to Closest Node is taken to be the minimum of all eight lines and the four
edge lengths (thus, the minimum of 12 possible lengths).

2. Aspect Ratio:
 This is the ratio of the longest edge of an element to either its shortest edge or the
shortest distance from a corner node to the opposing edge ("height to closest node
For 3-D elements, each face of the element is treated as a 2-D element and its aspect
ratio determined. The largest aspect ratio among these faces is returned as the 3-D
elements aspect ratio.
Aspect ratios should rarely exceed 5:1
3. Warpage:
This is the amount by which an element (or in the case of solid elements, an element
face) deviates from being planar. Since three points define a plane, this check only
applies to quads.
The quad is divided into two trias along its diagonal, and the angle between the trias
normals is measured.

Warpage of up to five degrees is generally acceptable.

2. Skew:
Skew of triangular elements is calculated by finding the minimum angle between the
vector from each node to the opposing mid-side, and the vector between the two
adjacent mid-sides at each node of the element.

The minimum angle found is subtracted from ninety degrees and reported as the
elements skew.

3. Chordal Deviation:
Curved surfaces can be approximated by using many short lines instead of a true curve.
 Chordal deviation is the perpendicular distance between the actual curve and the
approximating line segments.

4. Interior Angles:
These maximum and minimum values are evaluated independently for triangles and
quadrilaterals.

5. Jacobian:
This measures the deviation of an element from its ideal or "perfect" shape, such as a
triangles deviation from equilateral. The Jacobian value ranges from 0.0 to 1.0, where
1.0 represents a perfectly shaped element. The determinant of the Jacobian relates the
local stretching of the parametric space which is required to fit it onto the global
coordinate space.
Hypermesh evaluates the determinant of the Jacobian matrix at each of the elements
integration points (also called Gauss points) or at the elements corner nodes, and
reports the ratio between the smallest and the largest. In the case of Jacobian
evaluation at the Gauss points, values of 0.7 and above are generally acceptable. You can
select which method of evaluation to use (Gauss point or corner node) from the Check
Element Settings window.
6. Taper:
Taper ratio for the quadrilateral element is defined by first finding the area of the
triangle formed at each corner grid point:

These areas are then compared to one half of the area of the quadrilateral.
HyperMesh then finds the smallest ratio of each of these triangular areas to the quad
elements total area (in the diagram above, "a" is smallest). The resulting value is
subtracted from 1, and the result reported as the element taper. This means that as the
taper approaches 0, the shape approaches a rectangle.
 Triangles are assigned a value of 0, in order to prevent HyperMesh from mistaking them
for highly-tapered quadrilaterals and reporting them as "failed".

Checks Used Only for 3-D Elements

These additional checks only apply to 3-D elements.

Minimum HyperMesh uses 2 methods to calculate the minimum element size: the shortest
Length / Size edge (in which the length of the shortest edge of each element is used) and the
height to closest node (which is more accurate, but more complex).
In the height to closest node method, HyperMesh calculates the closest
(perpendicular) distances to the planes formed by the opposite faces for each
corner node.

The resulting minimum length/size is the minimum of all such measured distances.

Tetra Collapse The height of the tetra element is measured from each of the four nodes to its
opposite face, and then divided by the square root of the faces area.

The minimum of the four resulting values (one per node) is then normalized by
dividing it by 1.24. As the tetra collapses, the value approaches 0.0, while a perfect
tetra has a value of 1.0. Non-tetrahedral elements are given values of 1 so that
HyperMesh wont mistake them for bad tetra elements.

Vol. Aspect Ratio HyperMesh evaluates Tetrahedral elements by finding the longest edge length and
dividing it by the shortest height (measured from a node to its opposing face).
Other 3-D elements, such as hex elements, are evaluated based on the ratio of
 their longest edge to their shortest edge.

Volume Skew This check applies only to tetrahedral elements; all others are assigned values of
zero. Volume Skew is defined as 1-shape factor, so a skew of 0 is perfect and a skew
of 1 is the worst possible value.
The shape factor for a tetrahedral element is determined by dividing the elements
volume by the volume of an ideal (equilateral) tetrahedron of the same
circumradius. In the case of tetrahedral elements, the circumradius is the radius of
a sphere passing through the four vertices of the tetrahedron.