HFSS15: The Mesh Generation Process

Following is the general mesh generation process:

1. HFSS generates an initial mesh, which includes surface approximation settings. If necessary, the mesher will automatically perform any repairs needed to recover an accurate mesh representation of a model. The solution profile will indicate when mesh repairs have been made, and the results of these repairs will be displayed per object in the mesh statistics panel.

2. If lambda refinement was requested, HFSS refines the initial mesh based on the material-dependent wavelength.

3. Any mesh operations that were defined are used to refine the mesh.

4. If ports were defined, HFSS iteratively refines the 2D mesh at the ports.

5. Using the resulting mesh, HFSS computes the electromagnetic fields that exist inside the structure when it is excited at the solution frequency.

6. If you are performing an adaptive analysis, HFSS uses the current finite element solution to estimate the regions of the problem domain where the exact solution has strong error. Tetrahedra in these regions are refined.

7. HFSS generates another solution using the refined mesh.

8. HFSS recomputes the error, and the iterative process (solve — error analysis — adaptive refinement) repeats until the convergence criteria are satisfied or the maximum number of adaptive passes is completed.

9. If a frequency sweep is being performed, then HFSS solves the problem at the other frequency points without further refining the mesh. An adaptive solution is performed only at the specified solution frequency.