Learning Forum

[Brayden York]

Hi all,

I am trying to simulate flow through multiple layers of wire mesh (calling them sheets from now on, to prevent confusion with meshing). I have a SpaceClaim script to automate the geometry generation and to allow me to parameterize the number of sheets, spacing, misalignment etc.

The script creates a bunch of disk layers, then intersects them with a small fluid body. The issue I am having is depending on the number of sheets I input as the parameter, there is a chance that the intersection can cause a sharp edge, shown here.

These edges cause problems with my orthogonality when meshing. Since the edges are splines, adding a radius to them with the pull function doesn't seem to work. Also, since I will be running multiple design points I would appreciate not correcting these manually. Does anyone know of a way to remove these edges with scripting? "Detect sharp edges" does not seem to record in the script, but even if I did detect them, how would remove them? Is this something that can be solved in meshing?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Brayden

[Karthik R]

Hello,

I would try to first explore a robust process to remove these sharp edges. Once you have a robust process in place, you should try and script it. There is a good chance that if your process is not robust, even if you were to spend quite some time script the workflow, it might not yield the desired result, especially when you are attempting to run a parametric study.

Regarding your other question, I'd not try to put this geometry through meshing and try to defeature this (especially if you are attempting to run a DOE).

One hint to remove these sharp edges - I'd try and create a bigger overlap between the wires. This might avoid the creation of sharp edges in the first place.

Thanks.

Karthik

[Brayden York]

Hi Karthik,

Thanks for the input, after trying for a while I haven't found a reasonable way to remove these edges. If I did remove them, it would mess with my boundary layer as well I believe.

What I did do however was change my parameters to make my misalignment nondimensional. This way I can make the misalignment say, 50%, and my test section 3-4 times wider than my wire openings, and I can be sure my cut sections will fall in an appropriate place. Basically ensuring the problem never shows up rather than trying to fix it... probably should've started there in the first place.

I'd like to leave the topic open though to see if there's any other input, it may be required in the future. Basically just how to reliably radius spline edges, and how to detect them with scripting (still can't get the "detect sharp edges" function to work in scripting).

Thanks again, 

Brayden

[Karthik R]

Hello,

This is exactly what I would have done to avoid the problem in the first place. I'm glad that you are able to move forward.

Good luck!

Thanks.

Karthik