Hello,

I have been iterating with modeler person using CATIA 5 to make me a fairly complex 3D solid model...

When I check the model in ICEM 11.0 and create topology, I get some yellow and blue curves (red being good). I can make a tet mesh using default settings, but it doesn't pass the mesh checker and definitely won't work in Fluent.

Am I stuck trying to get the modeler person to improve the quality of the solid model?

Thanks in advance, Samer

There's a lot you can do in Icem to clean up the geometry topology manually. The first thing is to look at the tolerance when building the diagnostic topology. Then start manually deleting surfaces that shouldn't be there and add surface patches to close holes and cracks. You don't want to do this multiple times, but if it is more or less a once-off, it is practical to do it this way. Sometimes it doesn't need much clean-up (i.e. some blue and yellow edges are still left) before you get a mesh that work. It is not a robust process, but at least you can get the job done.

I've worked with designers and draughtsmen who have fed me perfectly clean solid models, and those are a lot easier, obviously. But also with models that look like they have been drawn with 10 mm crayons. With some work, you can normally get these patched well enough in Icem to get a reasonable tetra grid.