Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) adaptive meshing allows you to maintain a high-quality mesh throughout an analysis, even when large deformations or losses of material occur, by allowing the mesh to move independently of the material. Adaptive meshing moves only nodes; the mesh topology remains unchanged. Adaptive meshing is available only for Coupled temp-displacement; Dynamic, Explicit; Dynamic, Temp-disp, Explicit; Soils; and Static, General steps.

You can define regions of the model where you want adaptive meshing by selecting OtherALE Adaptive Mesh Domain from the main menu bar. If necessary, you can select OtherALE Adaptive Mesh Controls or OtherALE Adaptive Mesh Constraint to customize the adaptive mesh controls or to add regional adaptive mesh constraints, respectively. Currently, you can define only one ALE adaptive mesh domain for any particular step.

For detailed information on adaptive meshing, see “ALE adaptive meshing,” Section 12.2 of the Abaqus Analysis User's Guide.

For detailed instructions on defining adaptive mesh regions, see the following sections:

• “Defining an ALE adaptive mesh region,” Section 14.14.1

• “Specifying ALE adaptive mesh constraints,” Section 14.14.2

• “Specifying controls for ALE adaptive meshing,” Section 14.14.3