In the deep-beam module, a mesh of Coons' quadrilateral elements is used by default when generating a FEM calculation model. The most significant parameter is the allowable size of a single element of a FEM mesh. A user defined element size is the greatest that may be generated while meshing. The mesh element size is defined in the Calculation Options dialog on the General tab.
Result values are particularly affected by meshing in places where loads are applied. To ensure that a mesh is appropriately refined, it is assumed that a size of a single mesh element on the whole deep-beam may not be greater than the minimum width of distribution of the load applied to the deep-beam. If it is necessary the mesh in areas of load application is refined. To obtain results independent from a specific arrangement of finite elements, it is necessary to describe the area of load distribution so that at least four elements spread over the distribution width. This leads to obtaining an exact finite element mesh and does not cause excessive calculation times. The following drawing presents a finite element mesh generated for a deep-beam loaded with a force distributed on a given width.
You can define arbitrary preferences for a meshing method. A change of meshing parameters from Coons' method is possible after selecting Meshing Options in the Job Preferences dialog box.
A mesh is refined in the area of load application independently of the selected meshing method.