To select a meshing technique:

From the main menu bar, select MeshControls.

ABAQUS/CAE displays prompts in the prompt area to guide you through the procedure.

Tip:  You can set the meshing technique using the tool, located in the Mesh module toolbox.

If your part or assembly contains more than one region, select those regions whose meshing technique you want to view or modify and press mouse button 2. The selected regions must all have the same dimensionality.

The Mesh Controls dialog box appears.

From the list of Technique options, select the meshing technique of your choice. (Some techniques are available only if they are valid for the selected region.)

ABAQUS/CAE selects As is if, in the previous step, you selected multiple regions that have different meshing techniques already assigned to them.

Select Free to create a free mesh.

Select Structured to create a structured mesh.

Select Sweep to create a swept mesh.

ABAQUS/CAE selects Multiple if a change in element shape assignment results in multiple techniques being assigned automatically to the selected regions. For example, suppose the free meshing technique is applied to all the regions of a solid part instance. If you change the element shape assignment of these regions from Tet to Hex or Hex-dominated, ABAQUS/CAE automatically changes the meshing technique assigned to each region from the free meshing technique to whatever technique is appropriate for each region; for example, structured meshing for some regions and swept meshing for others.

For detailed information on each meshing technique, see “Understanding mesh generation,” Section 17.7.

Click OK to close the dialog box and to save your mesh technique selection.

The next time you generate a mesh on the selected part instance or region, your selections will be honored.

If the selected region already contains a mesh, you will be prompted to delete the mesh or to cancel the entire procedure.