[rucky96]

Hi all,

I have made a mesh of a cylinder with snappyHexMesh satisfactorily. However I have at the intersection of the sides of the cylinder with the inlet and outlet some cells that are not like their predecessors (see image) and, ideally, I am looking for a mesh whose cross section is constant along the z axis. Otherwise I get some non-physical noise during simulation.

How can I eliminate those sharp angles (in red) and make them orthogonal so that they follow a perfect line? changing resolveFeatureAngle?

sharpAngles.png

/*--------------------------------*- C++ -*----------------------------------*\
| =========                 |                                                 |
| \\      /  F ield         | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox           |
|  \\    /   O peration     | Version:  2.4.0                                 |
|   \\  /    A nd           | Web:      www.OpenFOAM.org                      |
|    \\/     M anipulation  |                                                 |
\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
FoamFile
{
    version     2.0;
    format      ascii;
    class       dictionary;
    object      snappyHexMeshDict;
}
// * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * //

castellatedMesh true;
snap            true;
addLayers       true;

geometry
{
    cylinder
    {
        type triSurfaceMesh;
        file "cylinder.stl";

        regions
        {
            sidesPatch {name sidesPatch;}
            inletPatch {name inletPatch;}
            outletPatch {name outletPatch;}
        }
    }

};



castellatedMeshControls
{
    maxLocalCells 100000;
    maxGlobalCells 2000000;
    minRefinementCells 10;
    maxLoadUnbalance 0.10;
    nCellsBetweenLevels 10;

    features
    (
        {
            file "cylinder.eMesh";
            level 0;
        }
    );

    refinementSurfaces
    {
        cylinder
        {
            // Surface-wise min and max refinement level
            level (2 2);
        
            regions
            {
                sidesPatch {level (1 1); }
                inletPatch {level (0 0); }
                outletPatch {level (0 0);}
            }

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

    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
    {
    }


    // 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 (0.66 0.66 3);


    // 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 2.0;

    //- Number of mesh displacement relaxation iterations.
    nSolveIter 100;

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

    // Feature snapping

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

        //- Detect (geometric only) features by sampling the surface
        //  (default=false).
        implicitFeatureSnap false;

        //- Use castellatedMeshControls::features (default = true)
        explicitFeatureSnap true;

        //- Detect points on multiple surfaces (only for explicitFeatureSnap)
        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 true;

    // Per final patch (so not geometry!) the layer information
    layers
    {
        sidesPatch
        {
            nSurfaceLayers 10;
        }
    }

    // Expansion factor for layer mesh
    expansionRatio 1.1;

    // 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.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    finalLayerThickness 1;

    // 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.
    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
    // are perpendicular
    featureAngle 60;

    // At non-patched sidesPatch allow mesh to slip if extrusion direction makes
    // angle larger than slipFeatureAngle.
    slipFeatureAngle 30;

    // Maximum number of snapping relaxation iterations. Should stop
    // before upon reaching a correct mesh.
    nRelaxIter 3;

    // 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 17x! 90 degrees corresponds to 130 in 17x.
    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
{
    #include "meshQualityDict"


    // Advanced

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


// Advanced

// Write flags
writeFlags
(
    scalarLevels
    layerSets
    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;


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

[meachmet]

Hi, why don't you generate you cylinder using BM ? I did something similar using BM and don't get any sharp angle