Using ANSYS Workbench Pinch: Structural Topology Simplification for High-Quality Meshing

Pinch Function

In ANSYS Workbench, when using Mechanical to generate structural meshes, you may sometimes encounter the following problem: the local mesh elements in certain areas are excessively dense, with a large number of unnecessary tiny elements, especially in transition areas between faces or between edges. For this type of problem, it is usually because in that area, there are tiny gaps, and the distance between edges is very small, almost overlapping, which will cause the mesh in that area to be distorted.

For this type of problem, if you want the mesh in such areas to be more continuous, you can try using the Pinch function in the mesh tools to repair the geometric model. The Pinch function can automatically eliminate tiny edges, tiny faces, gaps, and some overlapping areas in the model. It can directly merge vertices to eliminate discontinuous areas, thereby eliminating the causes of mesh distortion from the source.

In Mechanical’s Mesh, right-click the mouse and insert a Pinch function.

Here you need to select Primary Geometry and Secondary Geometry, which are the two areas to be merged, usually by selecting edges. The Tolerance value determines how the software will automatically merge and delete edges, faces, and vertices smaller than this tolerance, simplifying the geometric topology.

Manually select the tiny edges that need to be processed, divided into two groups. This model has a total of 4 edges. Set the tolerance to 2mm, letting the software automatically merge edges and gaps smaller than 2mm, thereby eliminating the source of mesh distortion.

After regenerating the mesh, a smooth mesh transition will be achieved in that area.

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