In Icemcfd 10 you had three general methods of creating a volume mesh:

(a) Create mesh from geometry

(b) Create mesh from geometry and some surface mesh

(c) Create geometry from surface mesh

I often used (c) as follows: Created tet mesh and prism layer using (a), then used (c) to replace the core tet mesh with another tet mesh of a different size or a hexacore mesh. This worked well and PRESERVED the existing surface mesh AND prisms.

However, in Icemcfd 11 option (c) seems to have mysteriously disappeared.

In Icemcfd 11, as I understand it, you must create the tet mesh, prisms and hexa core mesh in one automated step without any opertunity for user intervention in between i.e.

Compute volume mesh

Mesh type: tetra/mixed

Mesh method: Octree

Create prism layers

Create hexacore

Select geometry: all

Use existing mesh parts: off

If however, you already have an EXISTING tet and prism mesh and you just want to redo the core volume mesh with a different volume size or a hexacore mesh you are out of luck.

No matter which options I select (with an existing tet and prism mesh) the existing prisms are destroyed when the mesher is re-run e.g.:

Compute volume mesh

Mesh type: tetra/mixed

Mesh method: Octree

Create prism layers: off

Create hexacore: on

Select geometry: all

Use existing mesh parts: all

This is really inconveniant as getting the tet, prism and hexa core meshers to work in one go on a complex geometry without some mesh repair/fixing in between can be virtually impossible.

Does anyone know how to get around this and regain Icemcfd 10s (c) like functionality in Icemcfd 11???

To further clarify the functionality of Icemcfd 10s (c) option:

In an existing mesh with a geometric surface tri mesh, prism layers and a tet core mesh, it would delete the tet core mesh and use the last prism layers surface tris (as a "surface mesh") to create a new core volume mesh i.e. it did NOT create the new volume mesh from the (geometric) surface tri mesh, deleting the existing prisms.

Doh! Just record a replay script of one automated meshing cycle. This can then be edited to give fine grained control over when and how the hexacore command (and all other commands obviously) is executed. You can just use the hexacore snippet to run hexacore exactly when you need it run.