[michele]

I'm approaching to sails computations.
I need to produce meshes that include zero-thickness wall surfaces (the sails).
Has anyone experience in how can be produced the initial solid model and this kind of mesh?
Thanks
Michele.

[mattijs]

You could generate a single mesh (don't know how), collect the faces into a faceSet (using the faceSet utility) and then use the splitMesh utility to locally introduce opposing patches.

Would be nice to hear if/how you managed to create the mesh.

[billy]

Is that like a shell mesh?

[michele]

Thanks Mattijs,
I will try to make some experiments.
For Billy: no, it is the opposite. I would like to compute the fluid flow around zero-thickness sails (with prescribed rigid geometry).

I would eventually couple the flow simulation with a sails structural behaviour (membrane for genoa and shells for more rigid sails).
In practice I need linear orthotropic constitutive laws under the hypothesis of large displacements.
The available FEM works only with 3d elements? Is the extension to these kind of elements straightforward?

Michele.