17.9.5 What can I do with a preview mesh?

When ABAQUS/CAE generates a free mesh on a solid with tetrahedral elements, it first generates a boundary mesh of triangles on the exterior faces of the solid regions, as described in What is a tetrahedral preview mesh?, Section 17.9.4.

In addition, ABAQUS/CAE highlights any faces on the boundary that failed to mesh. These failures are usually due to mesh seeding that is too coarse or to tiny edges or faces. You can save the highlighted faces in a set, and you can apply finer seeds to only the faces in the set. For more information about seeding faces in a set, see Can I seed a face or a cell?, Section 17.4.2. You can use display groups to display only the faces in the set. For more information, see Plotting display groups, Section 51.2.4.

You can query a preview mesh using the Query toolset. In addition, you can check the quality of a preview mesh using the mesh verify tool. The mesh verify tool allows you to check the quality of all boundary triangles, or you can use the selection filters to check the quality of the boundary triangles of only selected faces.

If tiny edges or faces prevent ABAQUS/CAE from generating an acceptable tetrahedral mesh, you can try the following:

In some cases you will not be able to mesh an imported solid part with tetrahedral elements because of very thin triangular elements in the surface mesh or because some sliver faces cannot be meshed with triangles. Using a combination of tools to mesh an imported solid part with tetrahedral elements, Section 41.3.6, describes how you can use the Edit Mesh toolset and other tools in the Mesh module to mesh the part successfully.