Hypermesh is indeed a good preprocessor for FEM as it supports exporting the mesh in

different formats for many different solvers.

Fig.1 - Hypermesh GUI with labels.

Now, coming to meshing, there are some golden rules for meshing mostly irrespective
of type of analysis and problems.

- The mesh should be finer and accurately represent the geometry in the critical areas i.e.
the areas where stress, strain, deformation and loading is going to be important.
Fig.2 - Mesh 3 represents the geometry better than all others.

- A part with all the three dimensions (x, y, z in a cartesian coordinate) comparable are
usually meshed with solid elements. Any feature or part having thickness more than 10
mm should be meshed with solid elements provides any of the other two dimensions are
not greater than 100 mm.
Fig.3 - A circular cylinder meshed with solid tetrahedron elements.

- A part with two dimensions comparable and the remaining one atleast 10 times less
than both of the other two is meshed with shell elements. As a rule of thumb, any
feature or part having thickness less than 10 mm should be meshed with shell elements
provided both of the other two dimensions exceed 100 mm. The mesh should be in mid-
surface and then the thickness and section properties should be assigned accordingly.
Fig. 4 - Midsurface meshing and visualization of thickness

- A part with two dimensions comparable and the remaining one at-least 10 times
bigger than both of the other two is meshed with beam elements.Any long feature like a
rod/bar/beam having circular cross section with diameter less than 10 mm or rectangular
cross section less than 10 mm X 10 mm should be meshed as beam. The type of beam to
be used will depend on the loading on the part, whether it is purely axial or bending and
twisting is also involved.

Fig. 5 - A circular rod is meshed with beam elements and shell elements.

These four rules will take care of the mesh for the most part, though there's more
depending on type of analysis, computational cost, accuracy and other modeling
considerations.

The last three rules work on the definition of aspect ratio of the geometric shape. In
general, an aspect ratio more than 10 invites the necessity of using shell or beam
elements.

Preference of elements (only first order elements considered) :

- While using solid elements 8 noded hexahedron elements are preferred to 6 noded
pentahedron elements and the later preferred to 4 noded tetrahedron elements.
Fig. 6 - Shell and solid elements

- While using shell elements, 4 noded quad elements are preferred over 3 noded tria
elements.

The elements in the picture with more nodes than mentioned in my points are second
order elements and in general they perform better than their first order counterparts.

Element Quality:

The elements interpolate the value of field variables from the later's value at the nodes
and the intepolation happens according to the element formulations. The element
formulation is derived for the ideal topology of elements, say an equilateral triangle or a
square rectangle in case of tria and quad elements respectively. Deviation in the
topology degrades the quality of mesh i.e. how accurate the interpolation will be and
hence the accuracy of your result.

The elements of the mesh must satisfy some quality criteria like
- Minimum and maximum angles in tria and quad elements. For tria, they may be within
30-120 degrees and for quad, within 45-135 degrees.
- Jacobian, a measure of how close the elements to the ideal ones. In Hypermesh, they
should be more than 0.6.
- Warpage, a measure of how much a quad element deviates from being in a single
plane. The warpage angle should be less than 15.
- Being within an appropriate length range defined by you, a minimum length of 3mm
with most of the elements within the range of 5 mm - 10 mm is ideal for most of the
cases.
- Within a specified aspect ratio, likely range is 4-6.

Mesh quality check is available in Hypermesh, and the menu shortcut is F10.
Fig. 7 - Element quality checking panel in Hypermesh.

Special Features:

- Meshing circular holes: A hole is meshed in different manners according to its

Fig. 8 - Mesh around a hole

- Fillets: Like holes, a fillet is meshed in different manners according to its radius.
R < 2 mm, the fillet is ignored.
2 mm < R < 8 mm, the fillet is meshed with one element with an edge forming a chord
along the circumference.
R > 8 mm, the fillet is split with more than one element and the geometry is represented
as accurately as possible.
Fig. 9 - Accurate representation of a fillet.

- Small parts: If any protruding part is present, there should be atleast two lines of
element representing the geometry.

Of course, for holes and fillets, ignoring the feature will depend on the importance of the
same in your analysis. Look at the first golden rule.

Automesh:

Hypermesh has an automesh feature, where the software automatically meshes a part
and decide the optimum meshing for the part. But, automesh doesn't perform well in
case of complex geometries. Only for a conventional geometry automesh is sufficient.
The best process here is taking out chunks of domain which is rectangular and simple
and apply automesh to speed up the process of meshing.

Automesh command can be invoked by pressing F12 in Hypermesh. In the 2D panel,

Mesh Flow and Symmetry:

Mesh flow is a really important concept. In a complex assembly of parts, the mesh size
and density changes from one region to another. When the mesh has to change its form,
the transition should be smooth and the flow of mesh should conform with the
transition.

When the mesh size changes from big to small, it should happen gradually and not
instantly in a row or two. The image at the top has a better mesh flow than the one at
the bottom. The rule of thumb is, given all other things are right, the mesh is better
when it looks good.

Also, symmetry plays an important role in meshing. If a part is symmetric, the mesh
should also be symmetric. This rule actually follows from the first golden rule, though in
a non-obvious way, that the mesh should accurately follow the geometry. The rule of
thumb for this is that when there is a symmetric part, the meshing is done only on the
half the part and is reflected to maintain the symmetry as it is in the geometry.

For example, in the above part the meshing can be done only in the left part and then
reflect it to maintain symmetry of the mesh.

Hypermesh Shortcuts:

Here goes most of the shortcuts for Hypermesh.

F1 - Help
Shift+F1 - Color
Ctrl+F1 - Print file

F2 - Delete
Shift+F2 - Temp Nodes
Ctrl+F2 - BMP file

F3 - Replace
Shift+F3 - Edges

F4 - Distance
Shift+F4 - Translate

F5 - Mask
Shift+F5 - Find
F6 - Edit element
Shift+F6 - Split
Ctrl+F6 - JPEG file

F7 - Align node
Shift+F7 - Project
Ctrl+F7 - Full screen

F8 - Nodes
Shift+F8 - Node edit

F9 - Line edit
Shift+F9 - Surface edit

F10 - Check elements

F11 - Quick edit

F12 - Automesh
Shift+F12 - Smooth

There is a nice PDF of the shortcuts which can be printed and kept for ready reference. It
can be downloaded from Hypermesh Shortcuts on altairuniversity.com

DISCLAIMER:

1. This answer is not everything one need to know about meshing in Hypermesh. To
learn more about meshing, look at the below answers and links and consult the
references mentioned there. This is just a primer.

Mukunda Madhava Nath's answer to ANSYS Inc: How should I decide which mesh to use
in ansys?

Mukunda Madhava Nath's answer to What are some good books to learn finite element
analysis?

Top 5 misunderstandings on (good) mesh.

Accuracy, Convergence and Mesh Quality

Meshing Considerations for Linear Static Problems

Meshing your Geometry: When to Use the Various Element Types

2. The measurements and lengths given here are not absolute. They are values
usually used by FE analysts and should be considered carefully with guidance.
3. The images are taken from internet and I don't own any of them. I will remove them in
case of any dispute.

Hope this helps.

PS: This answer will need a little bit of editing and clarifications. If you have any
comments or find any mistakes, please let me know.

Things to update: computational cost/memory consumption, references, a few links and

Interested in FEA, check my blog at Practical FEA