Resolution of converted .stl from CAD software and related tricks to do meshing

Dear All,

When the geometry is finished in CAD software like solidworks and ready to be converted to .stl file, there are multiple parameters to tune on such as deviation tol, angle tol, maximum facet size, output as ASCII/binary formats. I want to know how the above parameters should be coordinated with the configuration of cell numbers in each direction and parameters of cut-cell method such as dot-product tol, snap tol, etc. Whether there exists a standard procedure of steps instead of empirical trial&error to get an acceptable mesh from .stl converted from file of CAD software. And considering the size of .stl file will be larger as deviation and angle tols set smaller, whether the size of converted .stl would have any negative impact and how to trade off the potential impact with resolution of the .stl model.

These weeks, I have asked several questions oriented on this topic as follows targeted on problems I encountered when did meshing with .stl file from CAD software. And many thanks to @cgw @jeff.dietiker @onlyjus for their valuable answers. So for convenience of communication with other users I list them below as references.

  1. “Index, Dimension 1, above upper bounds” type error - MFiX - NETL Flow Science Software Support (doe.gov)

  2. How to eliminate the triangular holes/defects around the intersection parts from the generated mesh - MFiX - NETL Flow Science Software Support (doe.gov)

  3. Tricks to do meshing for high resolution .stl model under SMS mode - MFiX - NETL Flow Science Software Support (doe.gov)

  4. How to import .msh file generated by other softwares - MFiX - NETL Flow Science Software Support (doe.gov)

  5. Methods to eliminate the defects and leaks in generated boundary mesh - MFiX - NETL Flow Science Software Support (doe.gov)

I hope we can be provided some integrated technical empirical rules as a general guidance or recommend related literature for references. Thank you.

4 Likes

thanks a lot for posting this, this is extremely useful!

Thanks for your contribution @Ju_Wu .
I was having similar issues and was waiting when I was available to ask. This topics and your questions (also answers) gave me some ideas. I’ll try to create again my surfaces. I think MFiX is a gem for people who are studying multi-phase systems.

Btw, which CAD software do you use for creating .stl for MFiX. It seems SolidWorks and SpaceClaim are more efficient than other ones.