[Krapf]

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to simulate a spool valve. Thanks to Tobi's great Youtube tutorials I was able to create a waterproofed STL file. Now I want to creat a mesh with snappyHexMesh. I did it like it's shown in the video but I don't get the feature edge refinement to work properly. I tried different values for the level(s) as you can see in the pictures: level 0, level 4, levels ((0.001 1)), levels ((0.001 4)). But none of it delivers a satisfying result. (First I had an OBJ file with more edges but to test it I reduced it to the one you see in the first picture.)

My snappyHexMeshDict:

/*--------------------------------*- C++ -*----------------------------------*\
| =========                 |                                                 |
| \\      /  F ield         | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox           |
|  \\    /   O peration     | Version:  5.0                                   |
|   \\  /    A nd           | Web:      www.OpenFOAM.org                      |
|    \\/     M anipulation  |                                                 |
\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
FoamFile
{
    version     2.0;
    format      ascii;
    class       dictionary;
    object      snappyHexMeshDict;
}

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

// Which of the steps to run
castellatedMesh true;
snap            true;
addLayers       false;


// 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
{
    valve.stl
    {
         type triSurfaceMesh;
         
         regions
         {
              inlet        { name inlet; }
              outlet        { name outlet; }
              cartridge        { name staticWall; }
              cage        { name staticWall; }
              cageRefined    { name staticWall; }
              spool        { name staticWall; }
              symmetryPlane    { name symmetryPlane; }
         }
    }
};



// 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 5000000;

    // 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 5000000;

    // 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 5;



    // 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 "eMesh.obj";
              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
    {
         valve.stl
         {
             level (0 0);

             regions
             {
                  inlet        { level (1 1); patchInfo { type patch; }}
                  outlet    { level (1 1); patchInfo { type patch; }}
                  cartridge    { level (1 1); patchInfo { type wall; }}
                  cage        { level (1 1); patchInfo { type wall; }}
                  cageRefined    { level (2 2); patchInfo { type wall; }}
                  spool        { level (2 2); patchInfo { type wall; }}
                  symmetryPlane    { level (1 1); patchInfo { type symmetry; }}
             }
         }
    }

    resolveFeatureAngle 60;


    // 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
    {
    }


    // 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.
    // This is an outside point locationInMesh (-0.033 -0.033 0.0033);
    locationInMesh (0.043 0.035 0.013); // Inside point

    // 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 false;
}



// Settings for the snapping.
snapControls
{
    //- Number of patch smoothing iterations before finding correspondence
    //  to surface
    nSmoothPatch 4;

    //- Relative distance for points to be attracted by surface feature point
    //  or edge. True distance is this factor times local
    //  maximum edge length.
    tolerance 1.2;

    //- Number of mesh displacement relaxation iterations.
    nSolveIter 180;

    //- Maximum number of snapping relaxation iterations. Should stop
    //  before upon reaching a correct mesh.
    nRelaxIter 6;

    // Feature snapping

        //- Number of feature edge snapping iterations.
        //  Leave out altogether to disable.
        nFeatureSnapIter 5;

        //- Detect (geometric) features by sampling the surface
        implicitFeatureSnap false;

        //- Use castellatedMeshControls::features
        explicitFeatureSnap true;

        //- Detect features between multiple surfaces
        //  (only for explicitFeatureSnap, default = false)
        multiRegionFeatureSnap false;
}



// 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 false;

    // Per final patch (so not geometry!) the layer information
    layers
    {
    }

    // 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.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    finalLayerThickness 1.0;

    // Minimum thickness of cell layer. If for any reason layer
    // cannot be above minThickness do not add layer.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    minThickness 0.05;

    // 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.
    nGrow 0;


    // Advanced settings

    // When not to extrude surface. 0 is flat surface, 90 is when two faces
    // are perpendicular
    featureAngle 80;

    // 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
    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;

    // Max number of iterations after which relaxed meshQuality controls
    // get used. Up to nRelaxIter it uses the settings in meshQualityControls,
    // after nRelaxIter it uses the values in meshQualityControls::relaxed.
    nRelaxedIter 20;
}



// Generic mesh quality settings. At any undoable phase these determine
// where to undo.
meshQualityControls
{
    #include "meshQualityDict"

    //maxNonOrtho         70;
    //maxBoundarySkewness 20;
    //maxInternalSkewness 5;
    //maxConcave          90;

    // Optional : some meshing phases allow usage of relaxed rules.
    // See e.g. addLayersControls::nRelaxedIter.
    relaxed
    {
        //- Maximum non-orthogonality allowed. Set to 180 to disable.
        maxNonOrtho 65;
    }

    // Advanced

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


// Advanced

// Write flags
writeFlags
(
    scalarLevels    // write volScalarField with cellLevel for postprocessing
    layerSets       // write cellSets, faceSets of faces in layer
    layerFields     // write volScalarField for layer coverage
);


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


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

A finer background mesh didn't improve the results.
The whole case dictionary: https://www.dropbox.com/s/43u8tciquq...er.tar.gz?dl=0

Do you have any advice for me?

I hope I didn't forget an important information and thanks in advance!
Krapf

[Krapf]

There was a problem with too small cells. I set minVol to -1e30 and now the edge looks good. Refinement level is 3.

[Krapf]

Now I got a new problem. I want to refine some edges to level 4 but sHM adds an extra layer of cells to my symmetry patch (first picture). If I set it level to 3, that doesn't happen. If I set patch type to wall, I get a good result (second picture), too.

My snappyHexMeshDict:

/*--------------------------------*- C++ -*----------------------------------*\
| =========                 |                                                 |
| \\      /  F ield         | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox           |
|  \\    /   O peration     | Version:  5.0                                   |
|   \\  /    A nd           | Web:      www.OpenFOAM.org                      |
|    \\/     M anipulation  |                                                 |
\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
FoamFile
{
    version     2.0;
    format      ascii;
    class       dictionary;
    object      snappyHexMeshDict;
}

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

// Which of the steps to run
castellatedMesh true;
snap            true;
addLayers       false;


// 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
{
    valve.stl
    {
         type triSurfaceMesh;
         
         regions
         {
              inlet        { name inlet; }
              outlet        { name outlet; }
              cartridge        { name staticWall; }
              cage        { name staticWall; }
              cageRefined    { name staticWall; }
              spool        { name staticWall; }
              symmetryPlane    { name symmetryPlane; }
         }
    }
};



// 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 20000000;

    // 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 20000000;

    // 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 5;



    // 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 "level2.obj";
              level 2;
         }
         {
              file "level3.obj";
              level 3;
         }
         {
              file "feiner.obj";
              level 4;
         }
    );



    // 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
    {
         valve.stl
         {
             level (0 0);

             regions
             {
                  inlet        { level (1 1); patchInfo { type patch; }}
                  outlet    { level (1 1); patchInfo { type patch; }}
                  cartridge    { level (1 1); patchInfo { type wall; }}
                  cage        { level (1 1); patchInfo { type wall; }}
                  cageRefined    { level (2 2); patchInfo { type wall; }}
                  spool        { level (2 2); patchInfo { type wall; }}
                  symmetryPlane    { level (1 1); patchInfo { type symmetry; }}
             }
         }
    }

    resolveFeatureAngle 60;


    // 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
    {
    }


    // 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.
    // This is an outside point locationInMesh (-0.033 -0.033 0.0033);
    locationInMesh (0.043 0.035 0.013); // Inside point

    // 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 false;
}



// Settings for the snapping.
snapControls
{
    //- Number of patch smoothing iterations before finding correspondence
    //  to surface
    nSmoothPatch 3; //4

    //- Relative distance for points to be attracted by surface feature point
    //  or edge. True distance is this factor times local
    //  maximum edge length.
    tolerance 2.0; //1.5

    //- Number of mesh displacement relaxation iterations.
    nSolveIter 50; //150

    //- Maximum number of snapping relaxation iterations. Should stop
    //  before upon reaching a correct mesh.
    nRelaxIter 10; //5

    // Feature snapping

        //- Number of feature edge snapping iterations.
        //  Leave out altogether to disable.
        nFeatureSnapIter 10; //5

        //- Detect (geometric) features by sampling the surface
        implicitFeatureSnap false;

        //- Use castellatedMeshControls::features
        explicitFeatureSnap true;

        //- Detect features between multiple surfaces
        //  (only for explicitFeatureSnap, default = false)
        multiRegionFeatureSnap false;
}



// 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 false;

    // Per final patch (so not geometry!) the layer information
    layers
    {
    }

    // 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.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    finalLayerThickness 1.0;

    // Minimum thickness of cell layer. If for any reason layer
    // cannot be above minThickness do not add layer.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    minThickness 0.05;

    // 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.
    nGrow 0;


    // Advanced settings

    // When not to extrude surface. 0 is flat surface, 90 is when two faces
    // are perpendicular
    featureAngle 80;

    // 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
    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;

    // Max number of iterations after which relaxed meshQuality controls
    // get used. Up to nRelaxIter it uses the settings in meshQualityControls,
    // after nRelaxIter it uses the values in meshQualityControls::relaxed.
    nRelaxedIter 20;
}



// Generic mesh quality settings. At any undoable phase these determine
// where to undo.
meshQualityControls
{
    #include "meshQualityDict"

    // Optional : some meshing phases allow usage of relaxed rules.
    // See e.g. addLayersControls::nRelaxedIter.
    relaxed
    {
        //- Maximum non-orthogonality allowed. Set to 180 to disable.
        maxNonOrtho 65;
    }

    // Advanced

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


// Advanced

// Write flags
writeFlags
(
    scalarLevels    // write volScalarField with cellLevel for postprocessing
    layerSets       // write cellSets, faceSets of faces in layer
    layerFields     // write volScalarField for layer coverage
);


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


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

In the attachments you find meshing logs for patch type symmetry and wall.
The whole case dictionary: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9xv5dp70jq...tar.gz?dl=0&m=

[Krapf]

Solved it by setting a small part of the edges which are normal to the symmetry plane to level 3.

[nisht]

Originally Posted by Krapf

There was a problem with too small cells. I set minVol to -1e30 and now the edge looks good. Refinement level is 3.

You mean 1e-30. How does it help?

[xerox]

Hello,

Originally Posted by nisht

You mean 1e-30. How does it help?

thats a common "issue" when it comes to dimensionwise small meshes / geometries.

While meshing, sHM constantly compares certain mesh quality criterions with a given quality limit (defined in the meshQualityDict) to determine wether to keep the current mesh (sub step of the mesh) or to revert back to the previous stage of the mesh. One of them is the minimum cell Volume for example. Keep in mind that the given Volume is defined in SI units. So if you mesh small geometries, you can more or less easily end with smaller cells than permissible in the meshQualityDict.

There are 2 practical ways dealing with this problem:

1) Change the permissible value in the meshQualityDict to a suitable one for your case.

2) Simple scale the geometry by a factor (eg 1e3 in every dimension), do the meshing and rescale it (by 1e-3). Thats a tip I got from Tobi here: snappyHexMesh inclinced surface snapping problem


--------

Originally Posted by Krapf

Now I got a new problem. I want to refine some edges to level 4 but sHM adds an extra layer of cells to my symmetry patch (first picture). If I set it level to 3, that doesn't happen. If I set patch type to wall, I get a good result (second picture), too.

It is not allowed to set the type symmetry here, see the info in the annotated sHM dict:

// Optional specification of patch type (default is wall). No
            // constraint types (cyclic, symmetry) etc. are allowed.
            patchInfo
            {
                type patch;
                inGroups (meshedPatches);
            }