Assigning Meshing Techniques to 3D Volumes

In addition to the global parameters of a surface mesh, you can assign one or more 3D volumes with a specific mesh technique.

Depending on the various angles of the volume, the default mesh technique for a distorted rectangular volume can be a sweep technique. If the quality is insufficient, you can assign a structured technique or a free technique.

This task shows you how to:

Before you begin: Open the Partition Hex Mesher.
See Also
Creating and Editing a Partition Hex Mesh
Editing the Display of Mesh Volumes

Assign a Sweep Technique

You can assign a sweep technique to a specified volume. You can select multiple 2D domains as the source and a single 2D domain as the target. The app colors the source domains blue and colors the target domains magenta.

  1. From the Mesh Specifications section of the action bar, click Assign Sweep Technique .
    The Assign Sweep Technique dialog box appears.
  2. Select a geometry volume support.
  3. Select the Source domains.
  4. Select the Target domain, or click Compute Target from Source to compute the target side of the volume from the source side.
  5. Optional: Click Swap Source and Target to switch the domain selections assigned from the source to the target and vice versa.
  6. Click OK.

Assign a Structured Technique

You can assign a structured technique to a specified volume. Structured techniques produce fast, high-quality meshes, and they minimize the mesh transitions that you commonly find on the source and target sides of sweep volumes. The app colors the volumes dark green.

  1. From the Mesh Specifications section of the action bar, click Assign Structured Technique .
    The Assign Structured Technique dialog box appears.
  2. Select a geometry volume support.
  3. Click OK.

Assign a Free Technique

You can assign a free technique to one or more volumes.

If you are not satisfied with the mesh quality from a sweep or structured technique, you can reapply a free technique. The free technique is a local mesh specification that fills a specified volume with either a combination of tetrahedral and pyramidal elements or all tetrahedral elements.

  1. From the Mesh Specifications section of the action bar, click Assign Free Technique .
    The Assign Free Technique dialog box appears.
  2. Select a geometry volume support.
  3. Click OK.