The open source CFD toolbox
Castellation and refinement

Mesh refinement is controlled by settings in the castellatedMeshControls sub-dictionary.

The background mesh is refined in several steps. The strategy is to refine the mesh close to the features and the geometry surface to ease the snapping phase and at the same time allow as little mesh distortion as possible.

Mesh sizes are defined as relative to the starting background mesh. For example, if the background mesh size is 0.2 m, the mesh sizes at one and two levels of refinement will be 0.1 m and 0.05 m respectively.

Note
refinement is performed by cutting cells in half in each direction, i.e. a 3-D cell is transformed into 8 cells.

Overall number of cells limit. This includes the mesh outside the domain, i.e. prior to removing the unwanted mesh regions that are not connected to the reference location given by the locationInMesh entry. Refinement will stop immediately upon reaching this limit.

The refinement along the surfaces may spend many iterations on refinement of only few cells. Whenever the number of cells to be refined is less than or equal to the minRefinementCells parameter, the refinement will stop. Unless the parameter is set to zero, at least one refining iteration will be performed.

Cell size changes should be smooth as sudden changes are likely to introduce disturbances to the system. The 2:1 size jump across refinement regions cannot be avoided but the nCellsBetweenLevels avoids having consecutive refinement level changes close together. A good compromise between limiting the cell size jump and number of cells is with nCellsBetweenLevels 3. Note that this parameter is not used by the mechanism to refine in the narrow gap regions.

Increment (on top of max level) in small gaps.

Opposite of the gapLevelIncrement [label] OPTIONAL : removes cells in small gaps. The set of cells selected is extended by filtering to smooth the selection

Used to determine if surface normals are roughly the same or opposite. Used

• in proximity refinement
• to decide when to merge free-standing baffles e.g. if running in surfaceSimplify mode set this to 180 to merge all baffles
• in snapping to avoid snapping to nearest on wrong side of thin gap
• If not specified same as resolveFeatureAngle

Do not remove cells likely to give snapping problems

Switch off topological test for cells to-be-squashed and use geometric test instead

Do not refine surface cells with opposite faces of differing refinement levels

Use an erosion instead of region assignment to allocate left-over cells to the background region (i.e. make cellZones consistent with the intersections of the surface). Erosion is specified as a number of erosion iterations. Erosion has less chance of bleeding and changing the zone for a complete region.

Used for parallel running. The hint for the maximum number of cells on each processor. If the local number of cells exceeds this limit the generation process switches from refinement-followed-by balancing to weighted balancing before further refinement. This parameter can greatly improve mesh generation performance, aiding to achieve similar cell counts on each processor. However, note that re-balancing too often will slow the mesh generation process.

Used for parallel running. The relative difference in the number of cells per processor. A low value, e.g. 0.1 leads to more frequent load balancing, whereas a high value can disable load balancing completely.

In order to conform to geometric features, the local mesh resolution in the region of the feature must be sufficient to resolve the local geometry. Features can be read from any edge-based format, e.g. .nas, .bdf, .obj, .inp, .vtk.

To specify which feature lines are important, explicit features can be extracted using the surfaceFeatureExtract utility. This creates files of the form \$FOAM_CASE/constant/triSurface/<geometryName>.eMesh for use in the castellatedMeshControls.features sub-dictionary, e.g.

features
(
{
file            "someLine.eMesh";
level           2;
}
);


This will refine any cells that the edges of the feature 'mesh' pass through to level 2. Alternatively the levels can be specified to refine the mesh in the regions close to the edge.

features
(
{
file                "someLine.eMesh";
levels              ((0.1 3) (0.55 2));
}
);


Here the first value pair specifies Level 3 refinement within the 0.1 m from the edge, while the second pair sets Level 2 in across a wider region. The latter specification generally gives a better refinement behaviour.

If all features are to be considered, the implicit feature line handling option can be selected.

Surface refinement is driven by the castellatedMeshControls.refinementSurfaces dictionary.

A mesh size can be assigned to each region specified in the geometry dictionary. Sizes can be specified for the geometry as a whole, or optionally overridden via an optional regions sub-dictionary.

Patch types can also be set as part of the meshing process by including the type information in a patchInfo sub-dictionary.

In the example below the geometry called facade is refined to level 2 except for the window region which is refined to level 3/4. All patches generated for this surface become type wall.

facade
{
// Surface-wise min and max refinement level
level (2 2);
regions
{
// Region-wise specification
window
{
level (3 4);
}
}
// Optional specification of patch type (default is wall). No
// constraint types (cyclic, symmetry) etc. are allowed.
patchInfo
{
type wall;
// Optional group
// inGroups (meshedWalls);
}
// Optional increment (on top of max level) in small gaps
// gapLevelIncrement 2;
// Optional angle to detect small-large cell situation
// perpendicular to the surface. Is the angle of face w.r.t.
// the local surface normal. Use on flat(ish) surfaces only.
// Otherwise leave out or set to negative number.
// perpendicularAngle 10;
// Optional faceZone and (for closed surface) cellZone with
// how to select the cells that are in the cellZone
// (inside / outside / specified insidePoint)
// The orientation of the faceZone is
// - if on cellZone(s) : point out of (minimum) cellZone
// - if freestanding : oriented according to surface
// faceZone sphere;
// cellZone sphere;
// cellZoneInside inside; // outside/insidePoint
// insidePoint (1 1 1); // if (cellZoneInside == insidePoint)
// Optional specification of what to do with faceZone faces:
// internal : keep them as internal faces (default)
// baffle : create baffles from them. This gives more
// freedom in mesh motion
// boundary : create free-standing boundary faces (baffles
// but without the shared points)
// faceType baffle;
}

Refinement levels are specified as value pairs, where the second number should be of the same or higher value than the first. The latter is used to perform automatic feature refinement.

When the angle between the local surface normals is larger then the resolveFeatureAngle parameter, specified e.g. as

resolveFeatureAngle 60;


the mesh is refined to the Level specified by the second digit in the level dyad (see refinementSurfaces)

resolveFeatureAngle explanation

Volume refinement is specified in the castellatedMeshControls.refinementRegions dictionary, e.g.:

refinementRegions
{
box
{
mode            inside;
levels          ((1.0 4));

gapLevel        (4 0 10);
gapMode         outside;
}
}


These are defined by geometric regions, specified in the geometry section as, e.g. closed analytical ( searchableBox) or triangulated ( triSurfaceMesh) surfaces.

There are three modes of volumetric refinement:

• inside

All cells whose cell centre lies within the box are refined. This box geometry must be closed. The first element in levels (the distance) is ignored; the second is the desired refinement level.

box
{
mode        inside;
levels      ((1.0 4));
}

• outside

Same as inside but now the cells-to-be-refined are outside of the closed region.

box
{
mode        outside;
levels      ((1.0 4));
}

• distance

All cells whose cell centre lies within a specified distance from the geometry are refined. The first argument in the levels dyad is the distance:

box
{
mode        distance;
levels
(
(1.0 4) // within first 1.0 m refinement level 4
(2.0 3) // within 2.0 m refinement level 3.
);
}

modes of refinement

History

• Introduced in version v1806

Directional refinement can be specified in a closed region. The Following example illustrates the usage:

wakeBox
{
mode        inside;
// Dummy base level
levels      ((10000 0));

// Optional directional refinement (after all other refinement)
// Directional refinement
// for all cells according to 'mode' ('inside' or 'outside';
// 'distance' not supported) and within certain range. E.g.
//  - for all cells with level 2-5
//  - do one split in x direction
levelIncrement  (2 5 (1 0 0));

// Note
// - ignores 'levels' and gap* settings.
// - the cellLevel/pointLevels files are no longer consistent
//   with the mesh, the resulting mesh is no longer compatible
//   with e.g. dynamic refinement/unrefinement.
// - cellLevel will include any directional refinement
//   (i.e. it will be the maximum of all three directions)
}


Refinement can be restricted to regions via the limitRegions sub-dictionary

limitRegions
{
boxLimit
{
mode        inside;
levels      ((1.0 2));
}
}


This limits all refinement such as from features, refinementSurfaces or refinementRegions dictionaries, within a given geometric region. The syntax is the same as for the refinementRegions dictionary; the cell level now specifies the upper limit for any cell.

Note
• This does not override the refinement constraints given by the nCellsBetweenLevels setting
• A special case with level specified as -1 will remove any cell associated with that region (recommended to use only with inside/outside mode)

Activates gap level refinement. Takes three label arguments:

• the minimum number of cells between two surfaces forming the gap. This is usually greater than 3. A lower value might not resolve the gap correctly
• the level at which it should start detecting gaps; and
• the maximum allowed level of refinement to avoid excessive refinement of a single extraneous feature
gapLevel    (4 0 10);


Used in combination with gapMode

Gap refinement can directly remove cells based on orientation with respect to the gap. This limits the number of cells before performing the locationInMesh cell selection. Default is 'mixed' i.e. keep cells whilst doing the gap-level refinement.

gapMode     outside; // inside|outside|mixed; default = mixed


The gapMode entry is applicable if the surface triangles are consistently oriented, i.e. all pointing out of the surface. This can be enforced by applying the surfaceOrient utility.

unresolved narrow gap
resolved narrow gap

Used in combination with gapLevel

The locationInMesh entry is used to identify a location in the final mesh, from which snappyHexMesPh will mark and keep all reachable, i.e. connected, cells:

locationInMesh      (0 0 0);


For cases where a single locationInMesh is insufficient, multiple locations can be selected using the locationsInMesh entry. A cellZone is generated for each region, e.g.:

locationsInMesh
(
(( 0.005 0.005  0.005) heater)
(( 0.05  0.005  0.005) rightSolid)
((-0.05  0.005  0.005) leftSolid)
((-0.05  0.015  0.005) topAir)
((-0.05 -0.015  0.005) bottomAir)
);


The special cell zone name none can be used to indicate un-zoned cells.

To avoid ambiguity, the locationsOutsideMesh entry can be used to specify where the mesh should be removed.

locationsOutsideMesh ((100 100 100));


On mesh completion, a check is performed to ensure that none of these locations are present in the final mesh.

Faces between different cellZones are automatically inserted into a faceZone. The behaviour of these faceZones is specified through the faceZoneControls sub-dictionary. The faceType entry specifies the behaviour of the faces on the faceZone. If the faces are to become boundary faces, the patchInfo entry controls the patch information as for all other generated patches:

faceZoneControls
{
bottomAir_to_heater
{
patchInfo
{
type patch;
inGroups (patchPatches);
}
faceType baffle;
}
}


Group specification is useful e.g. during post-processing to address a set of patches or boundary conditions.

When a faceZone is not only a boundary to a cellZone but will become e.g. separate baffle, the following switch must be set to true in the castellatedMeshControls dictionary

// Whether any faceZones (as specified in the refinementSurfaces)
// are only on the boundary of corresponding cellZones.
// Not used if there are no faceZones. The behaviour has changed
// with respect to previous versions:
// true : all intersections with surface are put in faceZone
// (same behaviour as before)
// false : depending on the type of surface intersected:
// - if intersecting surface has faceZone only (so no cellZone)
// leave in faceZone (so behave as if set to true) (= changed
// behaviour)
// - if intersecting surface has faceZone and cellZone
// remove if between same cellZone or if on boundary
// (same behaviour as before)
allowFreeStandingZoneFaces true;

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