Multiple body STEP meshing with Salome

[mzenker]

Hi,

in the Elmer wiki, there is a description "Multiple bodies from Salome to Elmer" which tells us how multiple bodies with adjacent interfaces can be conformally meshed with Salome. The instructions are for a geometry created in Salome. I have just tried to do it using a STEP file containing two volumes. Unfortunately I didn't succeed - the creation of mesh groups doesn't seem to work for me. My geometry groups don't show up as geometric objects in the mesh group creation box.
Is there anyone out there who has already done that successfully?
(I know that there is a Python script by Rainer Ochs automating that, but I wanted to do it manually to get acquainted to Salome)
I use Salome 7.4.0 under Windows 7. The instructions are for Salome 4/Linux, could that be the reason?

Thanks for a hint,

Matthias

[mzenker]

Hi again,

I succeeded to go one step further - I managed to define the (volume) mesh groups (at least I think so). The trick seems to be that one has to select the groups in order to make them appear in the list.
But Salomé exports the whole mesh as two bodies with one single boundary. "Divide Surface" in ElmerGUI did not help.
Do I have to define the boundaries in Salome in an extra step? If so, how?

Any hints?

Matthias

[mzenker]

"Divide Surface" in ElmerGUI did not help.

It does if one selects the surface before...
But it would be more elegant to have the boundaries definition exported correctly by Salome.
Any hints how this can be achieved?

Matthias

[Etie]

Hi
I managed to create multiple bodies using this method. However, when i reopen the mesh in salome, and look at the individual meshes for each body, it is no longer the shape of the geometry group. Instead, there are elements missing within the mesh and extra elements floating around it. I was wondering if any of you were experiencing the same problem

[mzenker]

Hi,

I have seen this also for surfaces. No idea why this is so, I am investigating. But this may take some time since I have just started to learn Salomé. As soon as I have found a workflow I will report here.

Matthias

[mzenker]

Hi,

a short report of success:

When I follow the instructions in the wiki and additionally create groups containing the faces of my geometry (both in the Partition object and in the Mesh), I get the faces exported with different numbers and imported correctly in Elmer. So the step of dividing the surfaces in ElmerGUI is not needed. One can define the boundaries in Salomé by grouping several faces together or take every single face as individual boundary.
This time I didn't see my mesh scattered like described above. I still don't know why that happened.
All this is very fresh and I still have a lot to learn with Salomé. When I am more confident with the workflow and Salomé, I will try to update the wiki accordingly.
What I can say so far is that Salomé is very powerful and seems reasonably stable under Windows.

Matthias

[immertroll]

Hello mzenker,

I used the Salome Tutorial successfully. There are only some requirements to the original geometry. The partial bodies should not have self-intersections. Otherwise the Connection is not good and the mesh generator Needs a lot of time.
Salome has a tool in "Measure" to detect intersections.

Often ist more practical to use the bool operations. So you can delete parts from a bigger part and collect them with parts inside this volume.

I hope I could help a little bit.

[teobo]

Code: Select all

One can define the boundaries in Salomé by grouping several faces together or take every single face as individual boundary.
This time I didn't see my mesh scattered like described above. I still don't know why that happened.
All this is very fresh and I still have a lot to learn with Salomé. When I am more confident with the workflow and Salomé, I will try to update the wiki accordingly.

Firstly thank you for the tutorial; it is rather useful.
I am with same problem of "deviding edges" non-interactively. It would be an improvement if it were integrated in your tutorial, too.
How did you do it exactly than?
tia

[teobo]

for anyone who is interested: Here is how I solved it:
http://www.salome-platform.org/forum/forum_10/811597557