[Hip2BL7]

After what feels like years of googling, I feel I have given up and will move on to extrudeMesh which I know will be able to solve my problems.

I am creating a cylinder within a cylinder volume, and so I'm attempting to use blockMesh in order to create an axissymetric wedge of my problem.

My issue is that though blockMesh works fine:

Creating block edges
No non-planar block faces defined
Creating topology blocks
Creating topology patches

Creating block mesh topology

Check topology

        Basic statistics
                Number of internal faces : 2
                Number of boundary faces : 14
                Number of defined boundary faces : 14
                Number of undefined boundary faces : 0
        Checking patch -> block consistency


Creating block offsets
Creating merge list (topological search)...
Deleting polyMesh directory "constant/polyMesh"

Creating polyMesh from blockMesh
Creating patches
Creating cells
Creating points with scale 0.001
    Block 0 cell size :
        i : 0.000176056 .. 0.000176056
        j : 0 .. 0
        k : 0.000173913 .. 0.000173913

    Block 1 cell size :
        i : 0.000172412 .. 0.000172412
        j : 0.000436302 .. 0.000436302
        k : 0.000173913 .. 0.000173913

    Block 2 cell size :
        i : 0.000172412 .. 0.000172412
        j : 0.000436302 .. 0.000436302
        k : 0.000175066 .. 0.000175066


There are no merge patch pairs

Detected cyclic patches; ordering boundary faces

Writing polyMesh with 0 cellZones
----------------
Mesh Information
----------------
  boundingBox: (0 -0.000305412 0) (0.0174973 0.000305412 0.07)
  nPoints: 27468
  nCells: 13233
  nFaces: 53432
  nInternalFaces: 25966
----------------
Patches
----------------
  patch 0 (start: 25966 size: 29) name: air
  patch 1 (start: 25995 size: 13233) name: AMI1
  patch 2 (start: 39228 size: 13233) name: AMI2
  patch 3 (start: 52461 size: 500) name: beakerCylinder
  patch 4 (start: 52961 size: 448) name: toolCylinder
  patch 5 (start: 53409 size: 23) name: axis

End

My checkMesh throws errors:

Checking geometry...
    Overall domain bounding box (0 -0.000305412 0) (0.0174973 0.000305412 0.07)
    Mesh has 3 geometric (non-empty/wedge) directions (1 1 1)
    Mesh has 3 solution (non-empty) directions (1 1 1)
    Boundary openness (-3.7654e-15 1.47052e-14 3.00031e-19) OK.
    Max cell openness = 1.70915e-16 OK.
    Max aspect ratio = 56.6022 OK.
 ***Zero or negative face area detected.  Minimum area: 0
  <<Writing 23 zero area faces to set zeroAreaFaces
    Min volume = 9.40625e-14. Max volume = 1.83433e-11.  Total volume = 1.94124e-07.  Cell volumes OK.
    Mesh non-orthogonality Max: 1.07995e-05 average: 0
    Non-orthogonality check OK.
    Face pyramids OK.
 ***Max skewness = 1.17353e+146, 23 highly skew faces detected which may impair the quality of the results
  <<Writing 23 skew faces to set skewFaces
    Coupled point location match (average 9.02597e-10) OK.

Failed 2 mesh checks.

On examination, it seems as though blockMesh is creating thin faces on the axis of the elements. This causes many issues downstream when trying to use functions such as refineMesh etc. It doesn't seem to impair the actual solver.

Contents of constant/polyMesh/boundary:

    axis
    {
        type            empty;
        inGroups        1(empty);
        nFaces          23;
        startFace       53409;
    }

When I see other people define wedges, invariably their constant/polyMesh/boundary should show nFaces as 0.

I've gone through defining things as patches and wedges and seperating all my faces to putting them back together again, but I am well and truly stuck. Here's hoping you may be able to help me with my issues.

blockMeshDict

/*--------------------------------*- 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      blockMeshDict;
}
// * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * //

#include "cylinderRe"

backgroundMesh
{
    rOuter	$rO; // inner radius of outer cylinder
    rTool	$rT; // radius of the tool
    gap		$d;  // gap from tool to base of the beaker
    height	$h;  // cylinder height 

// Mesh

    n1x         $n1x;
    n1z     	$n1z;

    n2x         $n2x;
    n2z         $n2z;
    
    n3x         $n3x;
    n3z         $n3z;
} 

scale 1e-3;

vertices
(
    (0    0    0) //0
    ($rx1 $ty1 0) //1
    ($rx2 $ty2 0) //2
    (0    0    $:backgroundMesh.gap)    //3
    ($rx1 $ty1 $:backgroundMesh.gap)    //4
    ($rx2 $ty2 $:backgroundMesh.gap)    //5
    ($rx1 $ty1 $:backgroundMesh.height) //6
    ($rx2 $ty2 $:backgroundMesh.height) //7   
    ($rx1 $ry1 0) //8
    ($rx2 $ry2 0) //9
    ($rx1 $ry1 $:backgroundMesh.gap)    //10
    ($rx2 $ry2 $:backgroundMesh.gap)    //11
    ($rx1 $ry1 $:backgroundMesh.height) //12
    ($rx2 $ry2 $:backgroundMesh.height) //13
);

blocks
(
// Zone 1
    hex (0 1 8 0 3 4 10 3) 
    ($:backgroundMesh.n1x 1 $:backgroundMesh.n1z) simpleGrading (1 1 1)

// Zone 2
    hex (1 2 9 8 4 5 11 10)
    ($:backgroundMesh.n2x 1 $:backgroundMesh.n2z) simpleGrading (1 1 1)

// Zone 3
    hex (4 5 11 10 6 7 13 12) 
    ($:backgroundMesh.n3x 1 $:backgroundMesh.n3z) simpleGrading (1 1 1)
);

edges
(
);

boundary
(
    air
    {
        type patch;
	faces
        (
            (6 7 13 12)
        );
    }

    AMI1
    {
        type 			cyclic;
	neighbourPatch 	AMI2;
	transform		rotational;
	rotationAxis	(0 0 1);
	rotationCentre	(0 0 0);
       	faces
        (
	    (1 2 5 4)
	    (4 5 7 6)
            (0 1 4 3)
        );
    }

    AMI2
    {
        type 			cyclic;
	neighbourPatch 	AMI1;
	transform		rotational;
	rotationAxis	(0 0 1);
	rotationCentre	(0 0 0);
       	faces
        (
	    (8 10 11 9)
	    (10 12 13 11)
            (0 3 10 8)
        );
    }

    beakerCylinder
    {
        type wall;
        faces
        (
            (2 9 11 5)
	    (5 11 13 7)
	    (2 1 8 9)
	    (0 8 1 0)
        );
    }

    toolCylinder
    {
        type wall;
        faces
        (
	    (4 6 12 10)
            (3 4 10 3)
        );
    }    
	
    axis
    {
	type empty;
	faces
	(
	    (0 3 3 0)
	);
    }

);

cylinderRe

// Geometry (in mm)

    rO	17.5; // Beaker internal radius
    rT  12.5; // Tool radius
    d	4;    // Tool height from the bottom of the beaker
    h	70;   // Internal Cylinder height
    a   #calc "constant::mathematical::pi/180"; // 9 degree slice

    rx1 #calc "$rT*cos($a)";
    rx2 #calc "$rO*cos($a)";
    ry1 #calc "$rT*sin($a)";
    ry2 #calc "$rO*sin($a)";
	ty1 #calc "-$ry1";
	ty2 #calc "-$ry2";


// Mesh

    k	#calc "100/$rO";  // Target cell density

	// Zone 1
    n1x	#calc "round($k*$rT)";
    n1z #calc "round($k*$d)";

	// Zone 2
    n2x #calc "round($k*($rO - $rT))";
    n2z #calc "round($k*$d)";

	// Zone 3
    n3x #calc "round($k*($rO - $rT))";
    n3z #calc "round($k*($h - $d))";

	// Azimuth
	y1	#calc "round($k*(2*$rT - $rO)*sin($a))";
	y2	#calc "round($k*(0.5*$rT)*sin($a))";

// Operations

    omega_i	#calc "42000*(2*constant::mathematical::pi/60)"; // Speed in rad/s
    v           #calc "$omega_i*$rT*1e-3"; // linear velocity at the Tool

[Hip2BL7]

This one weird trick solved all my problems:

mergeType points;

Not really in the documentation for any of the axisymmetric mesh cases. Hope this helps anyone who stumbles across this forum post.

[dasith0001]

Thanks Diego, It was exactly my problem too, ''mergeType points;'' solves it. Thank you for saving me a lot of time.

Cheers,
Dasith

[Rakesh_the_pirate]

Originally Posted by dasith0001

Thanks Diego, It was exactly my problem too, ''mergeType points;'' solves it. Thank you for saving me a lot of time.

Cheers,
Dasith

Where is this "mergeType points;" in openfoam??? Can anyone tell me??? Thanks in advance.