Automatic Decomposition And HEX-dominant Meshing Of Complex Aero Engine Components

CAD-CAE integration is a major bottleneck in the automation of simulation workflows and needs to be streamlined so that industry can benefit from the full potential of simulation tools for product design and validation. In this work, the simulation intent (Nolan et al. 2015) concept, which captures high level modelling and idealisation decisions, is applied to create an efficient and fit-for-purpose analysis model. In many analysis workflows, such as fan-blade-off and other highly non-linear time-dependent events, hexahedral (hex) elements are the preferred element type. However, automatic hex mesh generation tools are limited to a small class of geometries and as such the mesh generation process requires extensive manual effort. The current industrial standard for hex mesh generation requires complicated sub-division of the design geometry into sweep-meshable sub-domains. This work describes automated approaches for generating hex-dominant meshes for complex aero component by automatically identifying the sweepable sub-domains. Geometric reasoning is used to interrogate the geometric model definition to identify regions where appropriate meshing strategies can be readily applied.