CST2013: Mesh Properties (Surface, Multilayer)

Simulation: Mesh Global Properties

Note: The active mesh type refer merely to the mesh preview. A change of the solver method will change the active mesh type.

Mesh density control frame

Steps per wavelength: This value is connected to the wavelength of the highest frequency set for the simulation. It defines the minimum number of mesh cells that are used for a distance equal to this wavelength.

This sets the spatial sampling rate for the signals inside of your structure. This setting has a strong influence on the quality of the results and on the calculation time. Increasing this number leads to a higher accuracy, but unfortunately also increases the total calculation time.

A good compromise between calculation time and the achievable accuracy is the default value of 2 for surface meshing.

Minimum number of steps: This value controls the global relative mesh size and defines a lower bound for the number of mesh cells independently of the wavelength. It specifies the minimum number of mesh edges to be used for the diagonal of the model bounding box. Consequently, the higher this value, the finer the mesh.

Together with the possibility to set local mesh sizes, see Local Mesh Property (Surface), this is the most important quantity to control the automatic surface mesh generator.

For Mesh type surface it specifies the minimum number of mesh edges to be used for the diagonal of the model geometry. The bounding box size will be ignored.

Refinement settings:

Material based refinement: Allows to switch the material based refinement on or off.

Edge Refinement: In this drop-down list you may control the edge refinement for the multi-layer mesh. When you select "None"  the edge refinement is switched off,  in the other cases the edge refinement is performed and you may choose the edge refinement value. Either you specify the value as fraction of the wave length, structure based or as an absolute value. The edge refinement value determines the maximal offset as well as the minimal offset for each edges. The minimal offset is calculated as the tenth of the edge refinement value. If structure based is chosen a characteristic width of the existing conductors will be calculated.

Mesh summary frame

The values shown in this frame are only for information purposes. You may not edit them. The number of surfaces is shown in the status bar of the program.

Min. edge length: The length of the shortest mesh edge.

Max. edge length: The length of the longest mesh edge.

Surface area: The surface mesh area in square user units.

Min. quality: The minimum of all mesh cell quality values.

Max. quality: The maximum of all mesh cell quality values.

Average quality: The average of all mesh cell quality values.

Note:

The quality of a triangle measures how well its shape matches the shape of an equilateral triangle. It is defined by the expression

,

where r is the radius of the incircle and R is the radius of the excircle of the triangle. According to this equation, the quality is positive and less than or equal to one. Low quality values indicate degenerated triangles that may have a negative impact on the convergence.

OK

Accepts the changes and closes the dialog. If changes were made, the mesh will be updated.

Apply

Stores the current settings. The dialog box open remains open.

Update

Updates the mesh representation.

Specials...

This button leads to a dialog box, that allows you control the surface mesh generator.

Cancel

Closes this dialog box without performing any further action.

Help

Shows this help text.