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Meshing Cylinder

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2016 6:30 am
by scvlim
Hi, is there any means to mesh a cylinder with a structured mesh? When i try to do that, the system states that it must be a prismatic volume. Anyway to go about that to obtain a "structured mesh" for a cylinder - getting similar size cells within the cylinder? Thanks.

regards,
Sam

Re: Meshing Cylinder

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2016 8:49 am
by abelcs
Hello,

you can generate a structured mesh of hexahedra (or tetrahedra) if the volume has 6 contour surfaces, so it can be topologically 'identified' with a cube.
You also have the option to use center structured meshes in the tops of the cylinder (Mesh->Structured->Surfaces->Center structured), and regular structured mesh in the lateral surfaces. In this case, the volume can have as much lateral surfaces as you want, and the tops must be meshed with triangles, so you can mesh the volumes using tetras or prisms (depending on the lateral surfaces' element types).
In the attached example model you can see the two cases (view geometry and mesh modes to identify them).

Re: Meshing Cylinder

Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2016 6:39 am
by scvlim
Thanks for the reply and suggestion. I tried using your suggestion of Center structured. I selected the top surface and even the bottom but the system kept stating that it has "rejected all the selected surface. select more centered structured meshing properties to assign to surface." what does that mean? In addition, will your method suggested work for a tube as well. Thanks.

Re: Meshing Cylinder

Posted: Fri Feb 26, 2016 11:51 am
by escolano
You can also use a semi-structured mesh: the two tops are meshed unstructured (triangles/quadrilaterals) and they are connected (with prisms/hesxashedra) in the structured direction with the number of divisions you want.

Mesh->SemiStructured->Volumes
and let the number of divisions in the structured extrussion direction

For a ring of cylinder it is possible to mesh it fully structured, for example split the cylinder in two halfs and these two volumes have 6-faces and could be meshed structuredly in the three directions.