The Element Quality option provides a composite quality metric that ranges between 0 and 1. This metric is based on the ratio of the volume to the sum of the square of the edge lengths for 2D quad/tri elements, or the square root of the cube of the sum of the square of the edge lengths for 3D elements. A value of 1 indicates a perfect cube or square while a value of 0 indicates that the element has a zero or negative volume.
This can also be expressed as follows:
For two-dimensional quad/tri elements:
Note: For the Mechanical physics preference, if Error Limit is set to Aggressive Mechanical and the Jacobian Ratio (Corner Nodes) is less than zero, an error occurs.
For three-dimensional brick elements:
The following table lists the value of C for each type of element:
| Element | Value of C |
| Triangle | 6.92820323 |
| Quadrangle | 4.0 |
| Tetrahedron | 124.70765802 |
| Hexahedron | 41.56921938 |
| Wedge | 62.35382905 |
| Pyramid | 96 |