What does mesh topology mean?

granzer · June 27, 2018, 01:29

What is a mesh topology? I have read this term being used in a lot of articles, but could not understand its intuitive meaning. And why is topology called a global property? Also, what does topology mean wrt CFD analysis anyways? Thank you.

colinda1 · July 18, 2018, 05:17

In general mesh topology means the structure of the mesh or in other words the global characteristics of the mesh:
- is it structured or unstructured?
- which type of elements in which regions (e.g. full-hexahedral in the regions near solid walls and hex-dominant elsewhere).
- For structured meshes the topology also often refers to the way the structured mesh is oriented and how the boundaries of each block is connected to a boundary of the same block (e.g. in an O-topology) or to the boundary of other blocks.

The choice of topology can be important to obtain a good quality mesh (e.g. high orthogonality) and hence is relevant for the CFD analysis. The influence of the topology reduces with a reduced cell size.

anon_q · July 15, 2019, 11:19

Geometry = The 3D coordinates of the the mesh points.
Topology = connectivity between different points to form faces, edges, ...etc.

June 27, 2018, 01:29	What does mesh topology mean?	#1
granzer Senior Member Mandeep Shetty Join Date: Apr 2016 Posts: 185 Rep Power: 10	What is a mesh topology? I have read this term being used in a lot of articles, but could not understand its intuitive meaning. And why is topology called a global property? Also, what does topology mean wrt CFD analysis anyways? Thank you.

July 18, 2018, 05:17		#2
colinda1 Senior Member Colinda Join Date: May 2012 Location: Brussels Posts: 153 Rep Power: 14	In general mesh topology means the structure of the mesh or in other words the global characteristics of the mesh: - is it structured or unstructured? - which type of elements in which regions (e.g. full-hexahedral in the regions near solid walls and hex-dominant elsewhere). - For structured meshes the topology also often refers to the way the structured mesh is oriented and how the boundaries of each block is connected to a boundary of the same block (e.g. in an O-topology) or to the boundary of other blocks. The choice of topology can be important to obtain a good quality mesh (e.g. high orthogonality) and hence is relevant for the CFD analysis. The influence of the topology reduces with a reduced cell size. Haitham Osman CFD and qutadah.r like this.

July 15, 2019, 11:19		#3
anon_q Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2018 Posts: 115 Rep Power: 8	Geometry = The 3D coordinates of the the mesh points. Topology = connectivity between different points to form faces, edges, ...etc. colinda1, granzer, qutadah.r and 1 others like this. Last edited by anon_q; July 15, 2019 at 14:13.

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