Blocking and structured meshing of aorta
 

Hi everyone!

I am trying to create a structured hybrid mesh in ANSYS ICEM for an aorta. The geometry can be observed on the following website: http://www.vascularmodel.org/miccai2012/.

According to literature, the flow can be stabilized by creating a hybrid mesh. This means making most of the inlet and the descending aorta a mesh consisting of hexahedral elements with a boundary layer, while the arch (including the branches) has tetrahedral elements, also with boundary layer.

I can make a mesh consisting of solely tetrahedral elements, with a boundary layer, in ANSYS ICEM. However, I am struggling a lot with the creation of a hybrid mesh when my starting point is an imported .stl file. I have followed several tutorials concerning blocking and hybrid meshing, but none of them seem to be useful for my geometry.

Therefore, I was wondering if someone here has experience/knowledge on how to create such a hybrid mesh? My final mesh should look like shown here: https://www.semanticscholar.org/pape...dda3a/figure/0

Thanks a lot!

Kind regards,

Michelle