[zizou1]

Hello everyone!
I'm looking for a butterfly valve or a gate valve in .stl format to put inside a cylindric pipe, preferably not completely closed/opened.
Can anyone help me?
Thank you,
Matteo

[simrego]

Hi!

Download one model from grabCAD (maybe you can find one there in STEP format), and prepare your stl files. You can do it with salome for example.

[zizou1]

Thank you simrego!
Actually I found various stl valves each of different diameters, but none of the diameter of my pipe: is this a problem for the snappy or is compatible anyway?

[simrego]

If you are doing it for fun, it can be more or less fine. But u could have problems during the snapping process due to the intersecting surfaces (if it is larger than your pipe).

But I still recommend you to find or make an appropriate CAD model and prepare your own .stl files. In salome (It is free, and there are a lot of videos, but you can use any cad software) you can easily extract your surfaces and export them as .stl
If you have a good stl, the snappyhexmesh will be more accurate and faster and etc. So you will be much happier!

[zizou1]

Basically the advice is to import in salome the step file, scale it to the right dimensions and then export as stl file?
Sounds good anyway, thank you.
One more doubt: the diameter of the pipe has to coincide with the internal surface of the valve, hasn't it?

[simrego]

Not really. My advice is to do something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U7j...l4XW5l9VzlZdKv
Like this, you will have a nice, closed stl surface.
You can find many many examples about the preprocessing on the internet.

[zizou1]

Lovely!
Thank you really helpful!

[zizou1]

Now I've got the stl file, but when I open it with Notepad this is what comes out (attached image).
Do you know why?

[Phicau]

Hi zizou1,

the STL is in binary format. You can convert it to ascii with a tool like meshlab.

I think that OpenFOAM can work with binary STLs.

Best,

Pablo

[zizou1]

Thank you Pablo!