CFD Online Discussion Forums - [snappyHexMesh] SnappyHexMesh surfaces intersection refinement

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SnappyHexMesh surfaces intersection refinement

Goodmorning,

for my thesys I have to run some simulations on a rubber screw extruder. It is composed by a long screw which rotates inside a cylinder. I am creating the mesh using SnappyHexMesh, it is a single region mesh.

In the radially most external parts the screw intersects the cylinder (this is correct because I don't want to simulate the clearance between the screw and the cylinder). I would like to get an higher refinement on the intersection between the screw and the cylinder, do you have any suggestions about how could I do it?

Maybe is possible to extract the intersection between the two surfaces? I was also thinking about importing an additional stl surface/volume to use to define the refinement zone but I don't want this surface imported for the refinement to be snapped

Hello Paolo,

You could use surfaceFeatureExtract to extract the intersection features between your surfaces and use it for refinement in snappyHexMesh:

Code:

outputName1

{

    extractionMethod    none;

    surfaces            (surface1.stl surface2.stl);



    // Generate additional intersection features (none | self | region)

    intersectionMethod  self;

}

source: https://develop.openfoam.com/Develop...ureExtractDict

Since you didn't specify which OpenFOAM version you are using, this is for the OpenCFD branch (openfoam.com). I didn't check if it is also possible in the foundation branch (openfoam.org) with surfaceFeatures.

Regards,
Yann