[me3840]

Hello folks. I'm doing a stupid-simple test case trying to learn how to do multi-region meshing. The geometry looks like this:

http://imgur.com/a/BZoWv

You can see there are 3 simple parts. The housing in blue, the interface which is partially transparent, and the "fan" which for now is just a block. I would like to mesh two regions - the mesh outside the interface (but inside the blockMesh block) and the mesh inside the interface, but outside the fan. Easy, right?

Not really. Here's my snappyHexMeshDict:

/*--------------------------------*- C++ -*----------------------------------*\
| =========                 |                                                 |
| \\      /  F ield         | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox           |
|  \\    /   O peration     | Version:  4.x                                   |
|   \\  /    A nd           | Web:      www.OpenFOAM.org                      |
|    \\/     M anipulation  |                                                 |
\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
FoamFile
{
    version     2.0;
    format      ascii;
    class       dictionary;
    object      snappyHexMeshDict;
}
// * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * //

// Which of the steps to run
castellatedMesh   true;
snap              true;
addLayers         false;


// Geometry. Definition of all surfaces. All surfaces are of class
// searchableSurface.
// Surfaces are used
// - to specify refinement for any mesh cell intersecting it
// - to specify refinement for any mesh cell inside/outside/near
// - to 'snap' the mesh boundary to the surface
geometry
{
    fan.stl
    {
        type triSurfaceMesh;
    name fan;
    }
    housing.stl
    {
        type triSurfaceMesh;
    name housing;
    }
    interface.stl
    {
        type triSurfaceMesh;
    name interface;
    }

};



// Settings for the castellatedMesh generation.
castellatedMeshControls
{

    // Refinement parameters
    // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    // If local number of cells is >= maxLocalCells on any processor
    // switches from from refinement followed by balancing
    // (current method) to (weighted) balancing before refinement.
    maxLocalCells 20000000;

    // Overall cell limit (approximately). Refinement will stop immediately
    // upon reaching this number so a refinement level might not complete.
    // Note that this is the number of cells before removing the part which
    // is not 'visible' from the keepPoint. The final number of cells might
    // actually be a lot less.
    maxGlobalCells 44440000;

    // The surface refinement loop might spend lots of iterations refining just a
    // few cells. This setting will cause refinement to stop if <= minimumRefine
    // are selected for refinement. Note: it will at least do one iteration
    // (unless the number of cells to refine is 0)
    minRefinementCells 0;

    // Allow a certain level of imbalance during refining
    // (since balancing is quite expensive)
    // Expressed as fraction of perfect balance (= overall number of cells /
    // nProcs). 0=balance always.
    maxLoadUnbalance 0.0;


    // Number of buffer layers between different levels.
    // 1 means normal 2:1 refinement restriction, larger means slower
    // refinement.
    nCellsBetweenLevels 5;



    // Explicit feature edge refinement
    // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    // Specifies a level for any cell intersected by its edges.
    // This is a featureEdgeMesh, read from constant/triSurface for now.
    features
    (
        {
            file "fan.eMesh";
            level 1;
        }
        {
            file "interface.eMesh";
            level 1;
        }
        {
            file "housing.eMesh";
            level 1;
        }
    );



    // Surface based refinement
    // ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    // Specifies two levels for every surface. The first is the minimum level,
    // every cell intersecting a surface gets refined up to the minimum level.
    // The second level is the maximum level. Cells that 'see' multiple
    // intersections where the intersections make an
    // angle > resolveFeatureAngle get refined up to the maximum level.

    refinementSurfaces
    {

        housing
        {
            // Surface-wise min and max refinement level
            level (1 2);
            faceZone stationaryFaces;
            cellZone stationaryZone;
            cellZoneInside insidePoint;
            insidePoint (0 0.08 0);
        }
        fan
        {
            // Surface-wise min and max refinement level
            level (1 2);
            faceZone rotatingFaces;
            cellZone rotatingZone;
            cellZoneInside insidePoint;
            insidePoint (0 0.026 0);
        }
    }

    // Resolve sharp angles
    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 0.08 0);


    // 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 false;
}



// Settings for the snapping.
snapControls
{
    //- Number of patch smoothing iterations before finding correspondence
    //  to surface
    nSmoothPatch 4;

    //- Relative distance for points to be attracted by surface feature point
    //  or edge. True distance is this factor times local
    //  maximum edge length.
    tolerance 1.2;

    //- Number of mesh displacement relaxation iterations.
    nSolveIter 30;

    //- Maximum number of snapping relaxation iterations. Should stop
    //  before upon reaching a correct mesh.
    nRelaxIter 6;

    // Feature snapping

        //- Number of feature edge snapping iterations.
        //  Leave out altogether to disable.
        nFeatureSnapIter 5;

        //- 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 true;
}



// 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 false;

    // Per final patch (so not geometry!) the layer information
    layers
    {
        fluidZone_to_solidZone
        {
            nSurfaceLayers  2;
        }
    }

    // Expansion factor for layer mesh
    expansionRatio 1.4;

    // 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.
    // is the thickness of the layer furthest away from the wall.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    finalLayerThickness 0.00028;

    // 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 0.00001;

    // 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 85;

    // At non-patched sides allow mesh to slip if extrusion direction makes
    // angle larger than slipFeatureAngle.
    slipFeatureAngle 25;

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

    // Number of smoothing iterations of surface normals
    nSmoothSurfaceNormals 4;

    // 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 0.2;

    // 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
{
        maxNonOrtho 75;//90;
        maxBoundarySkewness 20;//20;
        maxInternalSkewness 4;//4;
        minFlatness 0.5;//0.5;
        maxConcave 80;//80;
        minVol -1;//1e-13;
        minTetQuality -1;
        minArea -1;
        minTwist -1;//0.04;
        minDeterminant -1;
        minFaceWeight -1;//0.02;
        minVolRatio -1;
        minTriangleTwist -1;
        //minVolCollapseRatio 0.1;
        nSmoothScale 4;
        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;


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

Now after running the mesh, for some reason I get 3 regions, and none of them are what I want.

The first region is named domain0 and (if I hide the inlet and outlet) looks like this:
http://imgur.com/a/Qt4Fw
At first glance it's OK, but it has two problems:
1. It doesn't carry the "housing" surface name, instead it has domain0_to_stationaryZone. I imagine if I fix other problems this will go away.
2. It doesn't have the interface in it. The fan is there and snappy acted like the interface didn't exist.

The next region is stationaryZone which is basically the solid of the fan housing. I didn't want this, and none of the points are located here, so I don't know why snappy outputs it.
http://imgur.com/a/Abbfy


The final region is rotatingZone and is the solid of the fan. Seems similar to the last one, I didn't want this and my points aren't in there.
http://imgur.com/a/9vV5d


Anyone have pointers for me on what I'm doing wrong? What do I do with the interface?