Length-Based Mesh Refinement

Length based mesh refinement controls the length of the tetrahedral elements and the growth of the whole mesh. You can set a ceiling on the mesh growth with the option Restrict the Number of Elements to ensure a mesh of reasonable size after the length refinement.

When you define a mesh operation on a selection of objects (more than one) and set a maximum length, the operation occurs on the whole mesh. If you select just one object, when you refine its boundary, elements are added both inside and outside of that object.

When there are no more elements to refine or when no more elements can be added, the refinement process stops because it has either met the growth limit or the element length target. However, there are more quality improvement swaps, smoothing, and matching boundary issues, performed at the finishing stage that might slightly alter the mesh size.