Gambit 2.

2 Tips & Tricks

Thomas Scheidegger
June 8, 2004

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Outline

Data exchange with other CAD systems

Construction and clean-up tools
Meshing tools
Miscellaneous tips and tricks

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Data exchange with other CAD

Systems

CAD data import

Checking connectivity
Checking real geometry/topology
Tolerant modeling
Healing and smoothing real geometry
Data exchange via mesh import

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CAD Data Import

New InterOP R12 translators for IGES, STEP, Parasolid,
and Catia 4 (add-on) in Gambit 2.2
Warning is issued if the model size exceeds 10000 units

Geometry

Mesh

Faceted Geometry

ACIS (R12)

I-DEAS UNV

I-DEAS FTL

Parasolid (v15.0)

FLUENT/TGRID

STL

Catia V4

CGNS (v2.0)

VRML

STEP (AP203/214)

PLOT3D (formatted)

Optegra visualizer

IGES

ANSYS

Direct Pro/E Interface

PATRAN

Geometry (Faceted)

NASTRAN
Geometry (Real/Virtual)
Geometry (Faceted)

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Checking Connectivity

Check import of volumes/faces using entity based coloring

Vertices (white), edges (yellow), faces (light blue), volumes (green),
groups (dark green)
Virtual/faceted geometry identified by label (v_*/f_*), picking filter,
and color coding
Vertices (darkkhaki), edges (peru), faces (dodgerblue),
volumes (springgreen)

Check connectivity using connectivity based coloring

White: Stand-alone vertex or edge
Orange: Vertex connected to only one edge, or edge connected to
only one face (i.e. unconnected face!)
Blue: Vertex connected to exactly two edges, or edge connected to
exactly two faces (i.e. connected face)
Magenta: Vertex connected to three or more edges, or edge
connected to three or more faces (e.g. internal face)

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Checking Connectivity

Color by entity

Color by connectivity

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Checking Real Geometry/Topology

Checks for geometrical and topological inconsistencies

Topology problems (very rare) must be fixed before meshing
Detailed reporting through change in defaults
GEOMETRY.GENERAL.REAL_GEOMETRY_CHECK_SUMMARY = 0

Geometry not C1 or G1

Indicates lack of parametric/geometric continuity

Real operations (booleans, splits, sweeps) may fail
Can use virtual operations as fallback
Geometry errors do generally not prevent meshing. If the model can be
shaded, then it can likely be meshed

How to fix problems

Fix real geometry problems by healing the unconnected entities,
smoothing (new in Gambit 2.2), or by regenerating entities
Fix topology problems by deleting and reconstructing entities
Fix virtual/faceted geometry problems by deleting (hiding) and
reconstructing entities

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Tolerant Modeling

Tolerant modeling in Gambit

Real connectivity using an automatically evaluated local
tolerance value (instead of 1.0e-6 real ACIS tolerance)
assigned to vertices and edges
Allows use of less precise CAD data and still ensures proper
topology
Most construction tools (Booleans and splits) are tolerant
Requires less virtual clean-up
Tolerant modeling will attempt to stitch volume
Make geometry tolerant
globally during geometry import
all entities can be connected
Automatic sliver/short edge removal during tolerant import,
controlled through defaults
GEOMETRY.TOLERANCE.HEAL_REMOVE_SLIVER_FACE = -1
GEOMETRY.TOLERANCE.HEAL_REMOVE_SHORT_EDGE = 0.001

Print out of entity labels being eliminated

controlled inside heal face/volume forms

all entities need to be disconnected before making tolerant
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Tolerant Modeling

Assigns local tolerances instead of geometry modification

Tolerances based on face size or edge length (body box size).
Stitching stops at maximum tolerance
Body box size
< 0.01
< 0.1
< 1.0
< 10.0
> 10.0

Maximum tolerance
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1.0

Tolerant IGES import

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Healing Real Geometry

ACIS is a high precision modeler and needs all entities to satisfy

stringent data integrity check
Geometry imported from other CAD systems often lacks the
required accuracy
Healing is an operation designed to detect and correct accuracy
problems in ACIS models
Optional healing processes
Geometry simplification
Spline to analytic geometry conversion

Stitch faces
Repair geometry
Heals inaccuracies in model

Healing always includes tolerant modeling

Auto or manual tolerances

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Healing Real Geometry

Effective tool to connect (stitch) faces into a volume
Face healing can result in multiple volumes
Stitch faces

Stitch faces, Repair geometry

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Healing Real Geometry

Heal model
globally during geometry import
all entities can be connected
no control over heal options

controlled inside heal face/volume forms

all entities need to be disconnected before healing
manual control over heal options and tolerances
often easier to export ACIS model and heal globally during re-import

Healing repairs geometry near boundaries. Healing does not fix

geometry defects distant from edges
Healing can further corrupt poor geometry. Carefully inspect and
check geometry after healing!

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Smoothing Real Geometry

Geometry (edge, face) smoothing in Gambit 2.2

Smoothes discontinuous edges

Reduces geometry discontinuity defects for B-spline surfaces
Can aid in subsequent Boolean operations
Two smoothing options
Remove discontinuities
Remove G1 discontinuity (default)
Reduce complexity
Simplified NURB representation

Face
smoothing

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Data Exchange via Mesh Import

Import of surface or volume mesh files results in faceted

geometry, similar to virtual geometry
Use virtual geometry operations to work with entities
Convert virtual geometry to real if needed

Effective method to clean corrupt meshable geometry

Mesh the defect geometry in Gambit with sufficiently fine spacing
Assign boundary zones to faces as necessary, export mesh
Import mesh back into Gambit and work with faceted geometry

Boundary types are preserved during import of mesh files into

Gambit
Except periodic boundary types, periodic_shadow will have type wall
Import of mesh with hanging nodes (e.g. adapted mesh, hex core
mesh) is not supported
PLOT 3D files with Iblanking or of binary type need to be converted to
Fluent/Fidap mesh file using utility fe2ram
64-bit utility available for large mesh files
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Data Exchange via Mesh Import

Specify a Feature Angle to automatically build

geometry edges based on face normal
changes, i.e. the feature angle
Default feature angle is 135o
Conversion based on boundary information only
for feature angle 0o

Enable the angle based edge splitting option

MESH.MODIFY.EDGE_SPLIT = 1
MESH.MODIFY.EDGE_SPLIT_ANGLE = 135

Complete mesh is imported

Importing volume mesh through Surface import
generates geometry from all interior face zones
Delete cell zones in Tgrid first if only faces need
to be imported from volume mesh

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Data Exchange via Mesh Import

Adjust imported topology using the mesh modify

forms (face/volume)
Allows to split faces without loss of connected mesh
Modify meshed volume replaces old volume with new one
Modify meshed face adds modified face to original face

Unclick the Keep original edge toggle to remove existing

edges
Use Automatic Angle to add geometry edges
Similar to feature engle during mesh import

Fine tune geometry edge definition by manually adding or

deleting individual mesh edges
Spurs removed in single pick

Automatic angle: 15 deg

Automatic angle: 25 deg

Additional edges added manually
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Construction and Clean-up Tools

Real (ACIS) geometry tools

Real Boolean operations
Imprinting
Virtual geometry tools
Clean-up tools
Decomposing virtual geometry

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Real Face From Wireframe

Create face from wireframe

Coplanar edges
Any number of coplanar edges within ACIS tolerance can be stitched into
a real face

Non-coplanar edges
Any 3 or 4 sided non-planar loop can be stitched into real face
Loops with 5 or more non-planar edges can be stitched into real face if
Edge loop is convex
Edges dont turn excessively

New planar tolerant real face creation in Gambit 2.2 for non-coplanar
edge loops

Tolerant option ignored if ACIS is able to create non-tolerant face

Maximum tolerance reported in transcript window
Edges should be close to coplanar and connected
Tolerance should be smaller than intended mesh size
Turn off final projection of mesh from facets to geometry if tolerance is larger
than mesh size (MESH.FACE.PROJECT_TO_SURFACE = 0)

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Real Face From Wireframe

Create real face from wireframe in Gambit 2.2

Real face creation from

non-coplanar edges

Tolerant real face

creation from noncoplanar edges
Tolerance value
reported in transcript
window

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Real Volume Stitch

Create volume by stitching faces in Gambit 2.2

Real tolerant face stitch with tolerance option
Automatic or manual tolerance control
Tolerance should be smaller than intended mesh size

Both real and virtual creation in single step

May produce unwanted short edges
Healing can be tried in place of stitching
GEOMETRY.VOLUME.SPLIT_AT_CVXTY_PTS_IN_FACE_STITCH = 0

Option to stitch single or multiple volumes

Automatic addition of missing (connected) faces for single volume
Extra faces automatically discarded for multiple volumes

Single volume stitch can handle voids and dangling faces in

Gambit 2.2

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Real Volume Stitch

Three possible volumes

Single volume
Searches automatically for missing (connected) faces
Builds smallest possible volume from selected faces

Multiple volumes
Builds volumes for each watertight set of faces found
Discards extra faces not belonging to a closed set

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Real Boolean Operations

Why Boolean operations can fail

Poor geometric quality, complex topology
NURBS surfaces do not represent cylinders and spheres exactly.
Boolean between coincident analytic and NURBS surfaces are
unpredictable
Difficulties in finding imprints of connected entities
Two imprinting algorithms available
GEOMETRY.VOLUME.BOOLEAN_METHOD = 0, 1

What to do if split operation of entity A with B fails

Copy/Heal option
Copy B (and heal if needed), delete the original B
Perform the split operation, reconnect before meshing

Intersection/Subtraction option
Intersect A with B while retaining A
Subtract the result (intersection) from A while retaining the tool
Connect before meshing

Clean geometry through mesh export/import

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Imprinting in Boolean Operations

Unite cylinder with left cube

Global imprinting

GEOMETRY.VOLUME.BOOLEAN_METHOD = 0

Local imprinting

GEOMETRY.VOLUME.BOOLEAN_METHOD = 1

Default algorithm, more stable

Should not require to disconnect geometry
before operation
Requires subsequent bi-directional split

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Virtual Geometry

Overlay technology
Tool of choice to clean-up and simplify imported geometry
Needed when tolerant modeling and healing/smoothing are not
sufficient
Modifies size and shape of boundary surfaces while being
constrained by underlying host geometry definition
Represents same geometry but different topology
Can be derived from real, virtual, or faceted geometry

Limited use for Boolean operations

Semi-automatic virtual clean-up tool available

Three real faces merged

into one virtual face
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Virtual Geometry Operations

Merge: Replaces two connected entities (edge/face/volume)

with a single virtual entity
Only volumes can be merged in real

Split: Partitions an individual entity (edge/face/volume) into two

or more connected virtual entities
Connect: Combines two individual unconnected entities
(vertex/edge/face) into a single virtual entity
Connect entities by connecting lower order topology
Virtual connect can bridge relatively large gaps in model, larger
than ACIS tolerance of 1.0e-6

Collapse: Splits a face and merges the resulting with two

neighboring faces
Simplify Faces: Removes dangling edges

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Semi-automatic Clean-up Tool

Quickly identify, zoom-in, highlight areas that cause connectivity

and mesh quality problems
Graphics color coding set to connectivity
Graphics window pivot set to mouse

Suggests appropriate tools (standard virtual tools) to fix problems

Easy switch between clan-up tools and regular geometry tools

Nine available clean-up tools

Clean Up Short Edges
Clean Up Holes

Option for real face creation in Gambit 2.2

Easy access to additional face creation tools

Clean Up Cracks
Clean Up Sharp Angles
Clean Up Large Angles
Clean Up Small Faces
Clean Up Hard Edges
Clean Up Fillets
Clean Up Duplicate Geometry in Gambit 2.2

Removal of duplicate volumes, faces, edges, and vertices

Select Clean Up Domain

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Semi-automatic Clean-up Tool

Clean Up Duplicate Edges in Gambit 2.2

Includes edges which are coincident in part (T-junction connect)

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Semi-automatic Clean-up Tool

Clean Up Duplicate Faces in Gambit 2.2

Connects or deletes faces
Two search options
Topology based
All lower topology has to be identical

Centroid based
Less accurate, but helpful in detecting duplicate
faces with different lower topology

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Semi-automatic Clean-up Tool

Clean Up Duplicate Volumes in Gambit 2.2

Connects or deletes duplicate volumes
Duplicate entities due to modeling errors or
problematic import

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Semi-automatic Clean-up Tool

Clean Up Short Edges in Gambit 2.2

Edge merge and face merge in addition to vertex
connect
Automatic selection of edges and faces in merge
list, controlled by defaults
TOOLS.CLEANUP.FACE_MERGE_MIN_ANGLE = 135
TOOLS.CLEANUP.EDGE_MERGE_MIN_ANGLE = 135

Angles sharper than the defaults are cleaned up

using vertex connect

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Manual Virtual Clean-up Operations

Eliminate short edges

Edge merge with adjacent edges
Virtual (Tolerance) option allows to automatically merge
short edges below a specified edge length
Virtual (Tolerance) option with no value specified for
Max. Edge Length and Min. Angle will merge all
possible edges and automatically eliminate all vertices
connected to exactly two edges

Connect vertices (collapsing short edge between)

GEOMETRY.VERTEX.CONNECT_REMOVE_SHORT_EDGE

must be set to 1 in the defaults to connect the vertices

defining the shortest edge

Identify short edges using the Highlight shortest edge

button in the edge and face connect forms

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Manual Virtual Clean-up Operations

Eliminate sliver faces, small faces, sharp face angles

Merge face with neighbor face
Virtual (Tolerance) option allows to automatically merge
faces which form angles larger than Min. Angle
Avoid merging faces which form sharp angles ( 90). Sharp angle
merge can cause meshing problems
Set GEOMETRY.FACE.SHARP_ANGLE_MERGE in defaults to 1 in order
to merge faces which form sharp angles

Use merge edges option in face merge GUI to automatically

remove short edges

Connect edges (collapsing sliver face between)

GEOMETRY.EDGE.CONNECT_REMOVE_DEGENERATE_FACE = 1

required to connect the edges defining the sliver face

Eliminate sliver volumes

Connect faces (collapsing sliver volumes between)
GEOMETRY.FACE.CONNECT_REMOVE_DEGENERATE_VOLUME = 1

required to connect the faces defining the sliver volume

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Example: Eliminate Short Edge

Eliminate short edge by

Splitting off small face
Merging small face with adjacent face
Merging lower topology (merging edges)

Alternative method: Connect vertices using

GEOMETRY.VERTEX.CONNECT_REMOVE_SHORT_EDGE = 1

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Face connect with T-junction splits

New functionality in Gambit 2.2, to ensure connectivity between

non-aligned faces
Utilizes projections, splits, and connects
For real and virtual geometry, resulting geometry is always virtual
Easy connecting of poorly matching faces

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Virtual Geometry Operations

Tolerance used for virtual connect should be smaller than mesh

size
If tolerance is larger than intended mesh size, or if mesh size is
smaller than merged/collapsed faces, meshing may fail
Mesh within the tolerance region gets pushed back to edge

For faces separated by a large gap,

create new face to fill the gap

For faces that overlap by a large amount,

split each face with the intruding edge
and form new face in center

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Connect Preserving Mesh

Preserve higher topology mesh during edge and face connect

Mesh on unconnected entities must be topologically equivalent, but
can have different grading
Might require mesh smoothing after connect operation

Allows easier meshing of geometry of repeated patterns

Copy geometry using mesh unlinked option before connecting
Preserve
first edge
shape
applies to
mesh as well

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Decomposing Virtual Geometry

Face splits by
Face (Virtual)
Set GEOMETRY.FACE.VIRTUAL_FACE_FACE_SPLIT to 1 in defaults
Bi-directional option
Try exporting surface meshes and splitting imported faceted faces if virtual face
split fails

Edges (Virtual)
Endpoints of splitting edge need to be connected to edges of face
Tolerance for edge proximity to face

Vertices (Virtual)
Tolerance option for vertex proximity to face
Can produce dangling edges
Shaped edge option

Locations (Virtual)
Locations snap to edges near boundaries
Manually drag and position temporary Locations
Shaped edge option

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Decomposing Virtual Geometry

Volume splits by
Faces (Virtual)
All split tool faces must be connected together
Must share boundary edges with volume boundary
If volume split fails (rarely), make volume invisible (keep lower topology
visible) and stitch together desired volumes

Locations (Virtual)
Easy tool to split virtual volumes
Manually drag and position temporary Locations
Splitting volumes with voids not supported

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Adjusting Virtual Geometry

Adjust virtual geometry using the slide virtual vertex tool

Vertices can be adjusted after meshing

(might require subsequent smoothing of
mesh)

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Tips for Virtual Geometry

Partially deleting virtual geometry is tricky and not

recommended!
Host geometry can become partially visible and make stitching of
new geometry tricky
Hide virtual geometry instead using the Specify Display Attributes
form
Unselect Lower topology toggle to retain visibility of lower topology

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Meshing Tools

Size Functions
Boundary Layers
Miscellaneous meshing tools
Meshing tips

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Size Functions

Control mesh distribution on faces and in volumes

Eliminate the need to premesh edges manually
Automatically capture important geometry and flow features
Ensure high-quality meshes

Primarily designed for unstructured meshing

Speed and robustness improvements in Gambit 2.2
Without Size Function

Controlled growth rate with Size Function

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Size Function Types

Fixed
Controls mesh element size in a region as a function of distance
from a given location

Curvature
Controls mesh element size as a function of geometric curvature of
a face or edge and growth of mesh away from source
Good for highly curved surfaces or edges

Proximity
Controls the number of of mesh elements in a gap (edge gaps and
face gaps) and growth of mesh away from gap

Meshed
Uses existing mesh as initial size on source entity
New Size Function type in Gambit 2.2

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Fixed Size Function

Requires Source specification

Source is origin of Size Function, center of region
Vertices, edges, faces, and volume can be sources for
Fixed Size Function
Source entity type determines shape of size function

Component sources

Spherical shape around vertex

Cylindrical shape around straight edge

Sources can be topologically part of the attachment

(component source) or independent of attachment
(non-component source)
Sources can be internal or external
Non-component source

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Fixed Size Function

Attachment face

Requires Attachment specification

Attachment is the mesh to be affected
Fixed Size Function can be attached to edges, faces, and
volumes
Attachment volume
Attachment is ideally the whole model to ensure high
quality mesh

Parameter specification
Start size
Mesh element size at source

Growth rate
Geometric stretching of mesh away from source
Cannot be less than 1.0

Size limit
Maximum allowable mesh size for attachment
No further growth if size limit is reached

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Curvature Size Function

Source specification
Curvature of source entities (edges, faces) used
to determine start size

No Size Function

Parameter specification
Angle
Maximum allowable angle between any two
adjacent face normals on source
5-30 degrees is reasonable value

With Curvature Size

Function

Growth rate
Size limit
Edges as source entities
new in Gambit 2.2

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Proximity Size Function

Source specification
Source entities which contain gap

Gap is volumetric region between specified faces, or

area between opposing edges of specified face
Gap defined by one source face
Parameter specification

Cells/gap
Minimum number of mesh cells in gap

Growth rate
Size limit

Gap defined by two source faces

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Meshed Size Function in Gambit 2.2

Ensures that mesh grows controlled away from a

premeshed source entities (edges or faces)
Very useful after importing mesh
Local start size taken from premeshed source entities

Parameter specification
Only growth rate and size limit are required

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Background Grid

Use of the background grid default parameters is key

to obtaining the desired meshes
TOOLS.SFUNCTION.BGRID_MAX_TREE_DEPTH controls

the maximum refinement of the background grid

Increase the default value (16 in Gambit 2.2) until no cells
hit the tree depth as reported in the transcript window
A value of 1 puts no limits on the background tree depth,
but makes Size Functions slow for larger models
TOOLS.SFUNCTION.NONLINEAR_ERR_PERCENT

controls the allowable deviation of the local mesh from

the prescribed mesh size
Default is 25%, can vary between 3 and 25%
Number of cells above the prescribed tolerance are
reported in the transcript window
TOOLS.SFUNCTION.REPORT_BGRID_INFO = 1 turns

reporting in the transcript window on (on by default)

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Background Grid

Use the Size Function reporting in the Transcript window

If the mesh is noticeably changing as BGRID_MAX_TREE_DEPTH is increased,
it is a sign that too many background grid cells are hitting the limit

Background grid level reached

maximum value specified
Size Function not sufficiently
resolved

Ideal background grid

Underresolved BGRID

Resolved BGRID
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Working with Size Functions

Use multiple Size Functions as needed to resolve geometry and

flow features
Use Size Functions for surface meshing and combine with Boundary
Layers

Fixed Size Function is most robust

Can substitute for Curvature and Proximity Size Function

Size Functions on virtual geometry can yield unexpected results

Host of virtual face is used as source. Causes difficulties when host
face extends beyond virtual face
Use vertices or edges as source entities instead of virtual faces to obtain
reliable results
Restitch source face from edges to have different host geometry (making
a copy of the source face is not sufficient)
Real source face.1,
attachment face.5

Virtual source v_face.9 and attachment

v_face.10 have same host

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Working with Size Function

Size function preview uses simple background grid

Increase TOOLS.SFUNCTION.VISUAL_GRID_MAX_LINE_NUM (default
value = 25) if the size limits in the size function preview do not
match the specified limits
SF start size = 0.01

Preview start size 0.02222

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Boundary Layers

Produce high quality cells near boundary

Attachment to edges for 2D BL
Attachment to faces for 3D BL

Uniform or aspect ratio based BL

Uniform
First row height as parameter
Difficulties on highly curved geometry

Aspect ratio based

Aspect ratio of first cell is parameter
Does well in concave corners
Cannot directly control first cell height

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2D Boundary Layers

Boundary layer shape near vertices depends on vertex type

End (E) type
BL mesh butts up against adjoining edge
Overlapped mesh where two BL meet

E
E

Side (S) type

Angle at vertex is bisected
Continuous BL
Internal continuity enforced by manually changing
vertex type to S

E
S

Wedge corner shape option for corner (C) and reversal (R) vertices
Wedge corner shape applies to 2D BL only
Can be combined with Cooper tool for quasi-3D BL
Wedge corner shape off

Wedge corner shape on

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3D Boundary Layers

Internal continuity
Allows boundary layers to be formed without
crossover region

Imprinting on adjacent face

Internal continuity on

Default MESH.BLAYER.PROJECT_ADJACENT_ANGLE
removed in Gambit 2.2

Single default MESH.VERTEX.MAX_END_ANGLE (=120o

by default) for consistent imprinting of 2D and 3D BL
Gambit 2.1
Internal continuity off

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3D Boundary Layers
Different 3D BL settings allowed on
adjacent surfaces in Gambit 2.2

Imprinting of 3D BL fails if adjacent

volume has already BL attached
Modify existing BL instead

Dangling 3D BL are not supported

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Boundary Layer Defaults

Angle smoothing for 3D BL in Gambit 2.2

MESH.BLAYER.ANGLE_SMOOTH_FACTOR (0.0.1.0)

controls amount of smoothing for both 2D and 3D BL

Gambit 2.1
ANGLE_SMOOTH_FACTOR only for 2D BL

Can only grow few layers

Gambit 2.2
Consistent for 2D BL and 3D BL
Can grow many layers with good quality

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Boundary Layer Defaults

Height transitioning for 3D BL

MESH.BLAYER.HEIGHT_TRANSIT_RATIO controls how fast the BL height

changes when sides of BL attach to premeshed edges

> 1 = number of cells over which height changes from premeshed edge
to specified height
< 1 = fraction of edge length
Gambit 2.1
Only for 2D BL

Gambit 2.2
HEIGHT_TRANSIT_RATIO consistent for

2D and 3D BL

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Boundary Layer Defaults

Use normal and offset smoothing when BL generates

skewed elements in concave corners
Normal Smooting
Direction of advancing normals is smoothed to avoid
collapsing of BL
NORMAL_SMOOTH_ITER (default = 10)
NORMAL_SMOOTH_ANGLE (default = 10o)
NORMAL_SMOOTH_CONVERGED (default = 0.0o)
NORMAL_SMOOTH_LOCALLY (default = 1)

Offset Smoothing
Eliminates dips in the advancing layers
OFFSET_SMOOTH_ITER (default = 0)
OFFSET_SMOOTH_CONVERGED (default = 0.01)

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Boundary Layer Tips

Use MESH.BLAYER.QUICK_N_DIRTY to control the

graphics display during BL creation and attachment
= 0 Project BL using MESH.BLAYER.USE_FACET_EVALS and take
attached Size Functions into account
1 Do not project BL, but use Size Functions (default)
2 Do not project, disregard Size Function (fastest)

Deactivate the display of the temporary BL as it is being

defined

Arrow of temporary BL points toward the label (ID) of the

face/volume into which the BL grows
Can be misleading when attaching BLs

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Meshing of Periodic BC

Hard-link face meshes before meshing

Use periodic option to ensures periodicity of mesh
(ensures periodicity even when one of the edges is split)

Reverse orientation active as default

Can hard-link multiple pairs of periodic faces in same
volume

Assign PERIODIC boundary type

Multiple hard-linked face pairs can be picked as one
periodic zone

Export mesh
Fluent 6 correctly recognizes node pairing of
periodic boundary conditions
Default periodic type is translational in Fluent 6

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Misc. Map Meshing Tools

Auto-match distribution of premeshed edges on opposite edges

MESH.MAP.MATCH_PREMESHED_EDGE_GRADING = 1

Auto-match doesnt propagate

to edges of adjacent faces when
map-meshing volumes

Sweep and revolve of faces generates 3D meshes from 2D meshes

Use With mesh option in sweep and revolve GUI
Uses grading and spacing of premeshed
sweep path
Same option when sweeping or revolving edges
into faces

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Meshing Tips

Surface meshing done on faceted face representation by default

MESH.FACE.EXACT_MESH_EVALS = 0

Final exact projection from facets to surface by default

MESH.FACE.PROJECT_TO_SURFACE = 1

Turn final projection off and leave mesh on facets if projection

generates skewed or degenerated mesh on bad/corrupt surfaces
PROJECT_TO_SURFACE = 1 PROJECT_TO_SURFACE = 0

Poor mesh by mapper on highly curved surfaces

Projection to the surface distorts the mesh
Smooth the face mesh using Winslow scheme
(only available for quad elements)
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Meshing Tips

If Tet/TGrid fails to initialize the volume mesh

Inspect quality of surface mesh
Turn on verbosity in defaults MESH.TETMESH.VERBOSITY = 1

Reports number of uninitialized nodes

Likely fixable if only few nodes fail to initialize

Export surface mesh and try meshing volume in TGrid

TGrid allows to visualize uninitialized nodes

Example 1: Nose cone of missile

Initialization fails due to collapsed surface elements
Fix: Split nose cone and create separate face for first element

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Meshing Tips

Example 2: Self-intersecting volume

Tet/TGrid initialization fails due to self-intersecting volume
Difficult to diagnose for complex geometries
Fix: Split volume

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Meshing Tips

Default limit for tri elements on single face is 100000

Increase limit in defaults MESH.TRIMESH.MAX_FACES or use a
value of 1 for no restriction

Mesh size limits

Memory estimate for single volume with 1 million cells
Hex mesh: 190MB
Tet mesh: 340MB (about 6 million tet cells max. on 2GB machine)

Access additional swap space on UNIX/Linux platforms (requires

3GB of swap space on disk)
setenv FLUENT_MMAP_PATH /tmp/filename
setenv FLUENT_USE_MMAP 1
Gives access to more memory and allows larger models

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Meshing Tips

Mesh delete
Delete volume or face mesh using Remove unused
lower mesh removes edge mesh, but does not reset
assigned edge grading and spacing
Delete edge mesh without using Reset to default values
deletes the edge mesh, but retain the assigned grading
and spacing
Reset to default values restores the default spacing
specified in
MESH.INTERVAL.COUNT
MESH.INTERVAL.SIZE

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Mesh Export

Native Fluent 6 export

Exports mixed (volume + surface) mesh
Exports surface mesh without specifying the boundary conditions
Unspecified boundaries will be wall

Export 2d Mesh option

Ensures proper 2D mesh format for Fluent 6
Default FILE_IO.MESH.EXPORT_2D_TOLERANCE = 0.0001 is used to
determine whether mesh is in xy-plane

Utility export option available through defaults

FILE_IO.FLUENT5.EXPORT_USING_UTILITY = 1

For rare cases where direct Fluent 6 exports fails

Exports only volume mesh
Exports surface mesh only for surfaces with specified boundary
conditions if FILE_IO.FLUENT5.EXPORT_SURFACE_MESH_ONLY = 1

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Miscellaneous Tips and Tricks

Geometry display and faceting

Boundary zone coloring
Picking entities
Journal files

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Geometry Display and Faceting

Geometry display and meshing use faceted representation for

increased speed
Use
GEOMETRY.EDGE.MAX_NUM_FACETS (default = 100)
GEOMETRY.TOLERANCE.EDGE_FACET (default = 0.01)

before the geometry creation to control the edge facets

For existing geometry, change the defaults, save and restore
database

GEOMETRY.EDGE.MAX_NUM_FACETS = 500
GEOMETRY.TOLERANCE.EDGE_FACET = 0.000001

If view manipulation is too slow

Turn visibility of silhouettes off using the display attribute form
Turn the silhouette generation for new faces automatically off using
GRAPHICS.GENERAL.ADD_SILHOUETTES_AT_FACE_CONSTRUCTION = 0

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Color by Zone Type/ID

Option to color zones by zone type or by zone ID

Similar to Fluent and TGrid
GRAPHICS.GENERAL.ZONECOLOR_TYPE = [0, 1]
0 color by ID

1 color by type

Change the default black background color

GRAPHICS.GENERAL.WINDOWS_BACKGROUND_COLOR

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Picking Entities

Picking by dragging a box over entities

Picking partially included
entities when dragging box
diagonally down

Picking completely included entities

when dragging box diagonally up

Using mouse and cursor: Shift +

Left mouse: initial pick, additional picks
Middle mouse: modify pick
Right mouse: Apply or next list box

Using picking filter

Picking based on real/virtual
meshed/unmeshed entities
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Journal Files

Extracting lost journal file from existing database file

gambit res(torejournal) journalfile id database

Tips to minimize impact when running old journal files

Use default GUI.GENERAL.JOURNAL_ENTITY = 1 or 2 to generate ID
independent labels, if possible
0 journal original labels (default)
1 journal lastid, i.e. creation order
2 journal entity location

Set GEOMETRY.VOLUME.BOOLEAN_METHOD = 0 to use old

Boolean/imprinting method
Set GEOMETRY.GENERAL.REAL_LABEL_CHANGE_MINIMIZATION = 0 when
running Gambit 2.0 journal files
Set GEOMETRY.FACE.VIRTUAL_FACE_SPLIT_METHOD = 0 to get old
behavior

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Miscellaneous Tips and Tricks

Use Edit Defaults to customize default settings

For example, set GLOBAL.GENERAL.SOLVER = 64 for Fluent 6 use
Save defaults in ~/Gambit.ini file
More information on the defaults is in the Gambit Defaults Guide at
www.fluentusers.com

Most Gambit documentation is in the Modeling Guide!

Use Quick Help to directly access the complete documentation

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Summary
GAMBIT continues to improve pre-processing
efficiency
Improved robustness and speed
Improved real geometry tools
Extended automatic clean-up
Improved meshing tools
Go try this at home.

Create real non-planar faces

Stitch volumes with voids
Quickly find duplicate entities
Connect faces with T-junctions
Split entities with Locations
Mesh with fast Size Functions

Thank You!
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