Can ANSYS ICEM CFD produce quadratic hexa?
 

Hello,everyone.
Now I am using the ANSYS ICEM CFD to mesh geometry to get the high quality hexahedron. I use these hexahedra in the computational electromagnetics. even though I learn it for months, I still have some questions to ask.
1.Now I can only produce and export linear hexahedron, and I want to know can these hexahydra conform the geometry perfectly? For example, I want to mesh a ball, does the linear hexahedra conform to the ball's curved face perfectly? And, does ANSYS ICEM CFD has the ability to produce quadratic hexahedra and export the 27 nodes of these hexahedra?
2.Following the first question,when we use this software to judge the hexa's quality, what's the difference between determinant 2×2×2 and determinant 3×3×3. If the ICEM can only produce linear hexahedra, these two methods can get the same answer. So what's the use does the determinant 3×3×3 have? The procedure using 8 nodes to judge the hexa may simple and faster?
Thank you and I am waiting for your answer!

Add Midside Nodes
 

Sorry I am so far behind on answering some of these questions...

ICEM Hexa now produces only linear Hexa... You are right about the 3X3X3 check, it seems kind of silly.

However, you can convert your linear hexas to quadratic hexa using Edit Mesh => Convert Mesh Type => Add Midside nodes.

These nodes can be auto-projected to the geometry.

There is an option under the shell meshing parameter, quadratic elements. Is it only useful for shell meshes?
Pls see another post of mine, http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ans...ents-used.html

Quadratic mesh is for FEA solvers, CFD solvers typically use Linear elements.

Adding Midside Nodes works
 

I obtain 9-node quad elements and 27-node elemnts through adding a midside node. Then the element information of 9-node element can be exported with all 9 nodes, while i can only get 20 nodes of 27-node element through '' export mesh" . so how can I export all 27 nodes of a cubic element in nastran format?