To delete designated line segments:

1. Select the delete panel.

2. Click the input collector switch and select lines.
3. Pick any lines in your model that do not appear in the following illustration.

Rear view of lines created for the hitch model.

4. Click delete.
5. Click return to exit the delete panel.

To create additional lines:

1. Select the Geom page.

2. Select the lines panel.
3. Pick nodes 10 and 12.
4. Click create.
5. Click and hold the left mouse button until the box cursor appears and the center arc is
highlighted.
6. Pick each end of the arc to create a temporary node at each end.
7. Click and hold the left mouse button until the box appears and the outer arc is highlighted.
8. Pick at the end of that arc to place a temporary node there.

40 HyperMesh Tutorials Altair Engineering

9. Use the arrow keys on the permanent menu to rotate the model as necessary to create the line
segments that define the bracket and the remainder of the hitch geometry.
10. Create a line between nodes 9 and 10.
11. Create a line between nodes 11 and 12.

Completed geometry of the hitch model.

12. Click return.

Clearing Temp Nodes and Creating Surfaces

To clear all temp nodes:

1. Select the Geom page.

2. Select the temp nodes panel.
3. Click clear all.
4. Click return to exit the temp nodes panel.

Altair Engineering HyperMesh Tutorials 41

To create a surface from lines:

1. Select the 2D page.

2. Select the spline panel.
3. Pick the four lines on the plate portion of the model.
4. Click the center switch and select surface only.
5. Click create.
The surface appears as illustrated below. (Only the surface is displayed in this illustration.)

Surface created by using the spline panel.

42 HyperMesh Tutorials Altair Engineering

Geometry Clean Up - HyperMesh-130
This lesson introduces the geom cleanup panel. This panel is used to prepare surface geometry for
meshing. The gaps, overlaps and misalignments that occur when surfaces are imported into
HyperMesh can prevent the automesher from creating quality meshes. By eliminating misalignments
and holes and by suppressing the boundaries between adjacent surfaces, you can automesh across
larger, more logical regions of the model and improve overall meshing speed and quality.

The following topics are included:

 HyperMesh 4.0 Terminology
 Geom cleanup panel features
 Surface edit/filler surface subpanel
 Using the geom cleanup and surface edit panels
All files referenced in the HyperMesh tutorials are located in the HyperWorks installation directory
under /tutorials/hm/.

If you do not know the location of the HyperWorks installation directory, contact your systems
administrator.

See Also

The HyperMesh Panels On-line Help for more information on the geom cleanup panel features.

HyperMesh 4.0 Terminology

New HyperMesh terminology

Altair Engineering HyperMesh Tutorials 43

face A single NURB; the smallest area entity.

surface A collection of one or more adjacent faces whose common edges are
suppressed. HyperMesh meshes on surfaces.

free edge The edge is owned by one surface. In the geom cleanup panel, the
default color is red.

shared edge The edge is owned by two adjacent surfaces. In the geom cleanup
panel, the default color is green.

suppressed edge The edge is owned, or shared, by two adjacent surfaces. It is

transparent to the meshing routine. In the geom cleanup panel, the
default color is blue.

non-manifold edge The edge is owned by three or more surfaces. In the geom cleanup
panel, the default color is yellow.

fixed point A point associated with a surface. A fixed point is displayed as a small
circle (o) and is the same color as the surface to which it is associated.
The automesher places a finite element node at fixed points.

free point A point in space not associated with a surface. A free point is
displayed as a small x, (x), and is the same color as the geometry
collector to which it belongs.

Geom Cleanup Panel Features

geom cleanup, edges subpanel menu

cleanup tol = The tolerance used to determine if two surface edges or two surface vertices
should be considered as one.

Note:

Values for cleanup tol= can be specified in two locations. The global value
for cleanup tol= is in the options/modeling subpanel. The local value for
cleanup tol =, which is used for a specific cleanup operation, is in the geom
cleanup panel. Sometimes, operations performed by the local cleanup
tolerance can be lost by a global cleanup tolerance overriding it.

An example of this is splitting a surface which was created by utilizing a local

cleanup tolerance. Since the surface edit panel uses the global cleanup
tolerance, all of the edges of the new surfaces will be reevaluated by
HyperMesh to determine their cleaned up status.

44 HyperMesh Tutorials Altair Engineering

 It is recommended that a large value (reasonable with respect to the element
size) be used for the cleanup tol= in the options/modeling subpanel. For
example, for an element edge length of 10, a cleanup tol of 0.1 (10/100) or
.05 (10/500) should be used.

visual options Enables user to control display mode of surfaces and edges. View surfaces
in wire frame or shaded mode. Display on/off surface edge types.

edges subpanel Used to remove gaps and overlaps between surfaces and to merge surfaces
together by modifying the edges of the surfaces.

toggle Convert individual surface edges from one edge type to another with single
mouse clicks. Free edge  shared edge  suppressed edge (red 
green  dotted blue).

replace Combine two free edges into a shared edge. Free edge  shared edge
(red green).

(un)suppress Suppress or unsuppress a number of edges simultaneously. Shared edge

 suppressed edge (green  dotted blue).

equivalence Convert free edges between adjacent surfaces to shared edges. Free edge
 shared edge. (red  green).

geom cleanup, surfaces subpanel

surfaces subpanel Used to delete duplicate surfaces, remove surface holes, organize
surfaces.
find duplicates Find and delete duplicate surfaces. Non-manifold edge  shared or
free edge (yellow  green or red).
organize by feature Combine surfaces based on fillets. Shared edge  suppressed edge
(green  dotted blue).
move faces Stitch faces to an existing surface or stitch faces to create a new
surface. Shared edge  suppressed edge (green  dotted blue).

geom cleanup, fixed points subpanel

Altair Engineering HyperMesh Tutorials 45

fixed points subpanel Used to add, replace, and suppress fixed points.
add Create fixed points from existing free points or nodes.
replace Delete point to be moved and relocate associated geometry to
retained point.
suppress Delete unnecessary fixed points or convert fixed points to free points.

Surface Edit/Filler Surface Subpanel

filler surface Fill in a hole in CAD data by selecting lines, nodes, or points. Similar to the
spline panel, with the exception that points cannot be selected in the
spline panel.

Note: In the surface edit panel, the lines from surface edge subpanel no longer exists. In
most panels, surface edges can be used as lines.

Using the Geom Cleanup and Surface Edit Panels

In this exercise, you use the geom cleanup panel and the filler surface subpanel of the surface edit
panel to import surface geometry and prepare it for meshing.

To import surface geometry data file:

1. Select the files panel.

2. Select the import subpanel.
3. Double-click translator =.
4. Select iges, or if you are using a Windows version, select iges.exe.

5. Double-click file name =.

6. Select raw_iges_data.iges.

7. Click import.
8. Click return.
9. Review the iges.msg message file.
In the iges.msg file, there are zero error and zero warning messages.
The message file has an .msg extension and is created in the directory in which HyperMesh was
invoked. After you import any file, it is good practice to review the message file for import errors.
In the files / import subpanel, use file geom tolerance and use automatic cleanup tol are
default settings. It is recommended that these settings be used when you import CAD data files
into HyperMesh for the first time. Experienced users may want to override the default settings
based on prior knowledge with similar files. These options can be toggled to geom tol = and
cleanup tol =. For information about these tolerances and how to use them, see HyperMesh
Help.
The file geometry tolerance for this file is 1.E-06. File geometry tolerance is recorded in iges files
at the top of the files. For this exercise, the iges file’s top section follows:

46 HyperMesh Tutorials Altair Engineering

 HyperMesh Iges Preprocessor S0000001

1H,,1H;,15HHypermesh Model,9Htas2.iges,17HHyperMesh v3.0b10,4Hv1.0,32, G0000001

38,6,308,15,15HHypermesh Model,1.,2,2HYPERMESHM,1,0.,13H980709.084600,1.E-06,, G0000002

5HYPERMESHr. X,1HX,10,0,13H980709.084600; G0000003

116 1 0 0 1 0 0 000000000D0000001

116 0 0 1 0 0 0D0000002

To display surface IDs:

1. Select the Tool page.

2. Select the numbers panel.
3. Click the input collector switch and select surfs.
4. Click surfs and select all on the extended entity selection pop-up window.
5. Click on.
The IDs for the displayed surfaces are displayed.
6. Click return.

To renumber surfaces:

1. Select the Tool page.

2. Select the renumber panel.
3. Click the input collector switch and select surfs.
4. Click surfs and select all on the extended entity selection pop-up window.
5. Click renumber.
The header bar displays the message, “12 surfs ranging from 1 to 12. Completed Through ID: 0.
6. Click return.
7. Click p on the permanent menu.
The new surface IDs are displayed in the graphics area.

Altair Engineering HyperMesh Tutorials 47

 Renumbered and displayed surface IDs

To save this work session as a HyperMesh database file:

1. Select the files panel.

2. Select the hm file subpanel.
3. Click file = and enter geomcleanup.hm.
4. Click save.
The header bar displays the message, “The file has been saved.
5. Click return.

To create non-solver specific component collectors:

1. Select the collectors panel.

2. Click the switch after collector type: and select comps.
3. Click name = and enter top.
4. Click the switch under creation method and select no card image.
5. If there is a name in the field following material =:
- Click material =.
- Click return.
The input field is now clear of that name.
6. Click color.
7. Select Color 5.
8. Click create.
A component collector named top, with a default material collector named top, is created.
9. Repeat steps 3-9 to create three more component collectors named middle1, with Color 4,
middle2, with Color 10, and bottom, with Color 9.

10. Click return.

48 HyperMesh Tutorials Altair Engineering