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-   -   [snappyHexMesh] Patches disappearing after snappyHexMesh (https://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/openfoam-meshing/210080-patches-disappearing-after-snappyhexmesh.html)

obiscolly50 October 25, 2018 14:42

Patches disappearing after snappyHexMesh
 
I'm trying to do multiregion meshing using snappyHexMesh for a chtMultiRegionFoam simulation. I've tried to simplify the geometry to a totally cylinder enclosed by a square channel. But after running sHM, all my boundary conditions set for the channel zone disappears and i don't understand why.
Can anyone explain the reason for this?

Here is my snappyHexMeshDict
Code:

/*--------------------------------*- C++ -*----------------------------------*\
| =========                |                                                |
| \\      /  F ield        | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox          |
|  \\    /  O peration    | Version:  4.0                                  |
|  \\  /    A nd          | Web:      www.OpenFOAM.org                      |
|    \\/    M anipulation  |                                                |
\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
FoamFile
{
    version    2.0;
    format      ascii;
    class      dictionary;
    object      snappyHexMeshDict;
}

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

//Dict file gotten from fillingOfTank tutorial


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
{
    channel
    {
        type triSurfaceMesh;
                file "channel.stl";
       
                regions
        {
            inlet                {name          chInlet;        }
                        outlet                {name        chOutlet;        }
                        chanWalls        {name        chWalls;        }
        }
       
    }
       
    cylWall
    {
        type triSurfaceMesh;
        file "cylinder3_1.stl";
    }
   
};



// 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 100000;//JN: for parallel meshing

    // 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 2000000;//JN: maximum number of cells - guiding value, can be exceeded

    // 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 10;

    // Number of buffer layers between different levels.
    // 1 means normal 2:1 refinement restriction, larger means slower
    // refinement.
       
    nCellsBetweenLevels 4;//JN: number of cells between refinement levels



    // 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 "channel.eMesh";
            level 2;                           
        }
               
                {
            file "cylinder3_1.eMesh";
            level 2;
                }
     
    );



    // 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
    {       
        channel
        {
            level (0 2);
                        faceZone chan;
            cellZone chan;
            cellZoneInside inside;
                       
                        regions
                        {
                                inlet                {level (0 2); patchInfo { type patch; } }
                                outlet                {level (0 2); patchInfo { type patch; } }
                                chanWalls        {level (0 2); patchInfo { type wall;  } }
                        }
        }
            cylWall
        {
            level (0 2);
                        faceZone cyl;
            cellZone cyl;
            cellZoneInside inside;
        }
           
    }

    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
    {
        //JN: here we could additionally refine the mesh
    }


    // 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.
    // This is an outside point locationInMesh (-0.033 -0.033 0.0033);
    locationInMesh (0.02 0.02 0.1); //JN: point inside our geometry

    // 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.
//JN: Mostly standard settings
snapControls
{
    //- Number of patch smoothing iterations before finding correspondence
    //  to surface
    nSmoothPatch 3;

    //- Relative distance for points to be attracted by surface feature point
    //  or edge. True distance is this factor times local
    //  maximum edge length.
    tolerance 1.0;

    //- Number of mesh displacement relaxation iterations.
    nSolveIter 300;

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

    // Feature snapping

        //- Number of feature edge snapping iterations.
        //  Leave out altogether to disable.
        nFeatureSnapIter 10;

        //- Detect (geometric) features by sampling the surface
        implicitFeatureSnap false;

        //- Use castellatedMeshControls::features
        explicitFeatureSnap true;

        //- Detect features between multiple surfaces
        //  (only for explicitFeatureSnap, default = false)
        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 true;

    // Per final patch (so not geometry!) the layer information
    layers
    {
        cylWall
        {
            nSurfaceLayers 5;
        }
                chanWalls
        {
            nSurfaceLayers 5;
        }
    }

    // Expansion factor for layer mesh
    expansionRatio 1.1;


    // 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.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    finalLayerThickness 0.3;

    // Minimum thickness of cell layer. If for any reason layer
    // cannot be above minThickness do not add layer.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    minThickness 0.1;

    // 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.
    nGrow 0;


    // Advanced settings

    // When not to extrude surface. 0 is flat surface, 90 is when two faces
    // are perpendicular
    featureAngle 90;

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

    // Number of smoothing iterations of surface normals
    nSmoothSurfaceNormals 1;

    // 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 0.3;

    // Angle used to pick up medial axis points
    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;

    // Max number of iterations after which relaxed meshQuality controls
    // get used. Up to nRelaxIter it uses the settings in meshQualityControls,
    // after nRelaxIter it uses the values in meshQualityControls::relaxed.
    nRelaxedIter 20;
}



// Generic mesh quality settings. At any undoable phase these determine
// where to undo.

meshQualityControls
{
    #include "meshQualityDict"

    // Optional : some meshing phases allow usage of relaxed rules.
    // See e.g. addLayersControls::nRelaxedIter.
    relaxed
    {
        //- Maximum non-orthogonality allowed. Set to 180 to disable.
        maxNonOrtho 75;
    }

    // Advanced

    //- Number of error distribution iterations
    nSmoothScale 4;
    //- Amount to scale back displacement at error points
    errorReduction 0.75;
}


// Advanced
debug 0;

// Write flags
writeFlags
(
    scalarLevels    // write volScalarField with cellLevel for postprocessing
    layerSets      // write cellSets, faceSets of faces in layer
    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;


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


ssa_cfd October 26, 2018 05:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by obiscolly50 (Post 712677)
I'm trying to do multiregion meshing using snappyHexMesh for a chtMultiRegionFoam simulation. I've tried to simplify the geometry to a totally cylinder enclosed by a square channel. But after running sHM, all my boundary conditions set for the channel zone disappears and i don't understand why.
Can anyone explain the reason for this?

Here is my snappyHexMeshDict
Code:

/*--------------------------------*- C++ -*----------------------------------*\
| =========                |                                                |
| \\      /  F ield        | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox          |
|  \\    /  O peration    | Version:  4.0                                  |
|  \\  /    A nd          | Web:      www.OpenFOAM.org                      |
|    \\/    M anipulation  |                                                |
\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
FoamFile
{
    version    2.0;
    format      ascii;
    class      dictionary;
    object      snappyHexMeshDict;
}

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

//Dict file gotten from fillingOfTank tutorial


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
{
    channel
    {
        type triSurfaceMesh;
                file "channel.stl";
       
                regions
        {
            inlet                {name          chInlet;        }
                        outlet                {name        chOutlet;        }
                        chanWalls        {name        chWalls;        }

        }
       
    }
       
    cylWall
    {
        type triSurfaceMesh;
        file "cylinder3_1.stl";
    }
   
};



// 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 100000;//JN: for parallel meshing

    // 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 2000000;//JN: maximum number of cells - guiding value, can be exceeded

    // 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 10;

    // Number of buffer layers between different levels.
    // 1 means normal 2:1 refinement restriction, larger means slower
    // refinement.
       
    nCellsBetweenLevels 4;//JN: number of cells between refinement levels



    // 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 "channel.eMesh";
            level 2;                           
        }
               
                {
            file "cylinder3_1.eMesh";
            level 2;
                }
     
    );



    // 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
    {       
        channel
        {
            level (0 2);
                        faceZone chan;
            cellZone chan;
            cellZoneInside inside;
                       
                        regions
                        {
                                inlet                {level (0 2); patchInfo { type patch; } }
                                outlet                {level (0 2); patchInfo { type patch; } }
                                chanWalls        {level (0 2); patchInfo { type wall;  } }
                        }

        }
            cylWall
        {
            level (0 2);
                        faceZone cyl;
            cellZone cyl;
            cellZoneInside inside;
        }
           
    }

    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
    {
        //JN: here we could additionally refine the mesh
    }


    // 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.
    // This is an outside point locationInMesh (-0.033 -0.033 0.0033);
    locationInMesh (0.02 0.02 0.1); //JN: point inside our geometry

    // 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.
//JN: Mostly standard settings
snapControls
{
    //- Number of patch smoothing iterations before finding correspondence
    //  to surface
    nSmoothPatch 3;

    //- Relative distance for points to be attracted by surface feature point
    //  or edge. True distance is this factor times local
    //  maximum edge length.
    tolerance 1.0;

    //- Number of mesh displacement relaxation iterations.
    nSolveIter 300;

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

    // Feature snapping

        //- Number of feature edge snapping iterations.
        //  Leave out altogether to disable.
        nFeatureSnapIter 10;

        //- Detect (geometric) features by sampling the surface
        implicitFeatureSnap false;

        //- Use castellatedMeshControls::features
        explicitFeatureSnap true;

        //- Detect features between multiple surfaces
        //  (only for explicitFeatureSnap, default = false)
        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 true;

    // Per final patch (so not geometry!) the layer information
    layers
    {
        cylWall
        {
            nSurfaceLayers 5;
        }
                chanWalls
        {
            nSurfaceLayers 5;
        }
    }

    // Expansion factor for layer mesh
    expansionRatio 1.1;


    // 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.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    finalLayerThickness 0.3;

    // Minimum thickness of cell layer. If for any reason layer
    // cannot be above minThickness do not add layer.
    // See relativeSizes parameter.
    minThickness 0.1;

    // 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.
    nGrow 0;


    // Advanced settings

    // When not to extrude surface. 0 is flat surface, 90 is when two faces
    // are perpendicular
    featureAngle 90;

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

    // Number of smoothing iterations of surface normals
    nSmoothSurfaceNormals 1;

    // 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 0.3;

    // Angle used to pick up medial axis points
    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;

    // Max number of iterations after which relaxed meshQuality controls
    // get used. Up to nRelaxIter it uses the settings in meshQualityControls,
    // after nRelaxIter it uses the values in meshQualityControls::relaxed.
    nRelaxedIter 20;
}



// Generic mesh quality settings. At any undoable phase these determine
// where to undo.

meshQualityControls
{
    #include "meshQualityDict"

    // Optional : some meshing phases allow usage of relaxed rules.
    // See e.g. addLayersControls::nRelaxedIter.
    relaxed
    {
        //- Maximum non-orthogonality allowed. Set to 180 to disable.
        maxNonOrtho 75;
    }

    // Advanced

    //- Number of error distribution iterations
    nSmoothScale 4;
    //- Amount to scale back displacement at error points
    errorReduction 0.75;
}


// Advanced
debug 0;

// Write flags
writeFlags
(
    scalarLevels    // write volScalarField with cellLevel for postprocessing
    layerSets      // write cellSets, faceSets of faces in layer
    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;


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



I think you should not specify patches in snappy.

obiscolly50 October 26, 2018 12:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by ssa_cfd (Post 712797)
I think you should not specify patches in snappy.

What is the best way to go about defining patches for multiregion?

razi.me05 April 14, 2023 13:24

Hi, Did you get a solution for this issue? I get inner mapped wall if I do low level of snap but when I increase the level it removes the inner wall. Why is it so sensitive? Is it supposed to be?


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