[msuaeronautics]

I am trying to mesh an airfoil shape in OF 2.0.0 using sHM from an .stl file. Once I run snappyHexMesh, it meshes the internal geometry only and cuts out the rest of the bounding blockMesh. How do I simply cut out the shape of the airfoil from the block?

Should locationInMesh be a point inside the .stl geometry for this case, or should it be somewhere outside (but still within the blockMesh)?

convertToInches 1;

vertices
(
(1 -50 -50)
(2 -50 -50)
(2 10 -50)
(1 10 -50)
(1 -50 50)
(2 -50 50)
(2 10 50)
(1 10 50)

//(-1 -50 -10)
//(5 -50 -10)
//(5 -50 10)
//(-1 -50 10)
//(-1 5 -10)
//(5 5 -10)
//(5 5 10)
//(-1 5 10)
);

blocks
(
hex (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) (1 200 100) simpleGrading (1 1 1)
);

edges
(
);

boundary
(
topAndBottom
{
type patch;
faces
(
(4 5 6 7)
(0 1 2 3)
);
}

inlet
{
type patch;
faces
(
(3 2 6 7)
);
}

outlet
{
type patch;
faces
(
(0 1 5 4)
);
}

front
{
type empty;
faces
(
(1 2 6 5)
);
}

back
{
type empty;
faces
(
(0 3 7 4)
);
}
);

mergePatchPairs
(
);

// ************************************************** *********************** //

castellatedMesh true;
snap true;
addLayers true;


// Geometry. Definition of all surfaces. All surfaces are of class
// searchableSurface.
// Surfaces are used
// - to specify refinement for any mesh cell intersecting it
// - to specify refinement for any mesh cell inside/outside/near
// - to 'snap' the mesh boundary to the surface
geometry
{
airfoil.stl
{
type triSurfaceMesh;
name airfoil;
}

refinementBox
{
type searchableBox;
min (-1 -1 -1);
max ( 5 5 5);
}
};



// Settings for the castellatedMesh generation.
castellatedMeshControls
{

// Refinement parameters
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

// If local number of cells is >= maxLocalCells on any processor
// switches from from refinement followed by balancing
// (current method) to (weighted) balancing before refinement.
maxLocalCells 2500000;

// Overall cell limit (approximately). Refinement will stop immediately
// upon reaching this number so a refinement level might not complete.
// Note that this is the number of cells before removing the part which
// is not 'visible' from the keepPoint. The final number of cells might
// actually be a lot less.
maxGlobalCells 10000000;

// The surface refinement loop might spend lots of iterations refining just
// a few cells. This setting will cause refinement to stop if <=
// minimumRefine are selected for refinement. Note: it will at least do one
// iteration (unless the number of cells to refine is 0)
minRefinementCells 0;

// Number of buffer layers between different levels.
// 1 means normal 2:1 refinement restriction, larger means slower
// refinement.
nCellsBetweenLevels 8;



// Explicit feature edge refinement
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

// Specifies a level for any cell intersected by its edges.
// This is a featureEdgeMesh, read from constant/triSurface for now.
features
(
{
file "airfoil.eMesh";
level 0;
}
);



// Surface based refinement
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

// Specifies two levels for every surface. The first is the minimum level,
// every cell intersecting a surface gets refined up to the minimum level.
// The second level is the maximum level. Cells that 'see' multiple
// intersections where the intersections make an
// angle > resolveFeatureAngle get refined up to the maximum level.

refinementSurfaces
{
airfoil
{
// Surface-wise min and max refinement level
level (4 4);
}
}

// Resolve sharp angles on fridges
resolveFeatureAngle 30;


// Region-wise refinement
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

// Specifies refinement level for cells in relation to a surface. One of
// three modes
// - distance. 'levels' specifies per distance to the surface the
// wanted refinement level. The distances need to be specified in
// descending order.
// - inside. 'levels' is only one entry and only the level is used. All
// cells inside the surface get refined up to the level. The surface
// needs to be closed for this to be possible.
// - outside. Same but cells outside.

refinementRegions
{
refinementBox
{
mode inside;
levels ((1e15 2));
}
}


// Mesh selection
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

// After refinement patches get added for all refinementSurfaces and
// all cells intersecting the surfaces get put into these patches. The
// section reachable from the locationInMesh is kept.
// NOTE: This point should never be on a face, always inside a cell, even
// after refinement.
locationInMesh (1 -20 0);


// Whether any faceZones (as specified in the refinementSurfaces)
// are only on the boundary of corresponding cellZones or also allow
// free-standing zone faces. Not used if there are no faceZones.
allowFreeStandingZoneFaces true;
}



// Settings for the snapping.
snapControls
{
//- Number of patch smoothing iterations before finding correspondence
// to surface
nSmoothPatch 3;

//- Relative distance for points to be attracted by surface feature point
// or edge. True distance is this factor times local
// maximum edge length.
tolerance 4.0;

//- Number of mesh displacement relaxation iterations.
nSolveIter 30;

//- Maximum number of snapping relaxation iterations. Should stop
// before upon reaching a correct mesh.
nRelaxIter 5;

//- Highly experimental and wip: number of feature edge snapping
// iterations. Leave out altogether to disable.
nFeatureSnapIter 10;
}



// Settings for the layer addition.
addLayersControls
{
// Are the thickness parameters below relative to the undistorted
// size of the refined cell outside layer (true) or absolute sizes (false).
relativeSizes true;

// Per final patch (so not geometry!) the layer information
layers
{
"airfoil.*"
{
nSurfaceLayers 2;
}
}

// Expansion factor for layer mesh
expansionRatio 1.2;

//- Wanted thickness of final added cell layer. If multiple layers
// is the
// thickness of the layer furthest away from the wall.
// Relative to undistorted size of cell outside layer.
// is the thickness of the layer furthest away from the wall.
// See relativeSizes parameter.
finalLayerThickness 0.6;

//- Minimum thickness of cell layer. If for any reason layer
// cannot be above minThickness do not add layer.
// Relative to undistorted size of cell outside layer.
// See relativeSizes parameter.
minThickness 0.1;

//- If points get not extruded do nGrow layers of connected faces that are
// also not grown. This helps convergence of the layer addition process
// close to features.
// Note: changed(corrected) w.r.t 17x! (didn't do anything in 17x)
nGrow 0;

// Advanced settings

//- When not to extrude surface. 0 is flat surface, 90 is when two faces
// make straight angle.
featureAngle 60;

//- Maximum number of snapping relaxation iterations. Should stop
// before upon reaching a correct mesh.
nRelaxIter 5;

// Number of smoothing iterations of surface normals
nSmoothSurfaceNormals 1;

// Number of smoothing iterations of interior mesh movement direction
nSmoothNormals 3;

// Smooth layer thickness over surface patches
nSmoothThickness 10;

// Stop layer growth on highly warped cells
maxFaceThicknessRatio 0.5;

// Reduce layer growth where ratio thickness to medial
// distance is large
maxThicknessToMedialRatio 0.3;

// Angle used to pick up medial axis points
// Note: changed(corrected) w.r.t 16x! 90 degrees corresponds to 130 in 16x.
minMedianAxisAngle 90;

// Create buffer region for new layer terminations
nBufferCellsNoExtrude 0;


// Overall max number of layer addition iterations. The mesher will exit
// if it reaches this number of iterations; possibly with an illegal
// mesh.
nLayerIter 50;
}



// Generic mesh quality settings. At any undoable phase these determine
// where to undo.
meshQualityControls
{
//- Maximum non-orthogonality allowed. Set to 180 to disable.
maxNonOrtho 45;

//- Max skewness allowed. Set to <0 to disable.
maxBoundarySkewness 2;
maxInternalSkewness 2;

//- Max concaveness allowed. Is angle (in degrees) below which concavity
// is allowed. 0 is straight face, <0 would be convex face.
// Set to 180 to disable.
maxConcave 80;

//- Minimum pyramid volume. Is absolute volume of cell pyramid.
// Set to a sensible fraction of the smallest cell volume expected.
// Set to very negative number (e.g. -1E30) to disable.
minVol 1e-13;

//- Minimum quality of the tet formed by the face-centre
// and variable base point minimum decomposition triangles and
// the cell centre. Set to very negative number (e.g. -1E30) to
// disable.
// <0 = inside out tet,
// 0 = flat tet
// 1 = regular tet
minTetQuality 1e-30;

//- Minimum face area. Set to <0 to disable.
minArea -1;

//- Minimum face twist. Set to <-1 to disable. dot product of face normal
//- and face centre triangles normal
minTwist 0.05;

//- minimum normalised cell determinant
//- 1 = hex, <= 0 = folded or flattened illegal cell
minDeterminant 0.001;

//- minFaceWeight (0 -> 0.5)
minFaceWeight 0.05;

//- minVolRatio (0 -> 1)
minVolRatio 0.01;

//must be >0 for Fluent compatibility
minTriangleTwist -1;


// Advanced

//- Number of error distribution iterations
nSmoothScale 4;
//- amount to scale back displacement at error points
errorReduction 0.75;
}


// Advanced

// Flags for optional output
// 0 : only write final meshes
// 1 : write intermediate meshes
// 2 : write volScalarField with cellLevel for postprocessing
// 4 : write current intersections as .obj files
debug 0;


// Merge tolerance. Is fraction of overall bounding box of initial mesh.
// Note: the write tolerance needs to be higher than this.
mergeTolerance 1e-6;


// ************************************************** *********************** //

[SirWombat]

locationInMesh is a location in the mesh ... actually where YOU want the mesh to be!

So if you want the mesh outside the stl ... then a locationInMesh would be outside your stl-geometry (of course the location should still be inside your blockmesh - if it isn't snappy will tell you).