Pointwise Release Focuses on Mesh Automation

Pointwise has released a major update to its computational fluid dynamics (CFD) mesh generation software. With its origins in a multiyear development effort funded by the U.S. Air Force for overset grid assembly, this latest Pointwise release includes a suite of tools that provide increased automation and flexibility in mesh topology creation, mesh types and mesh quality assessment.

A cut plane through an overset mesh system generated for a container ship propeller configuration. Automated near-body mesh is generated using the new Build Blocks feature while off-body meshing utilizes new voxel hex-dominant meshing technology. Image courtesy of Pointwise.

“This release is the culmination and commercial manifestation of a two-year $1.2 million research and development effort funded by the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command, Arnold Engineering Development Complex,” says Nick Wyman, Pointwise’s director of applied research. “That effort in turn was an extension of a previous, two-year, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II award. While focused on overset grid assembly, the capabilities added to the software are applicable to virtually any type of mesh generation.”

From the standpoint of mesh topology, Pointwise now includes Frameworks, the ability to generate meshes within coordinate systems local to geometric components (for example, a fuel tank) and then transform them into the global coordinate system (for example, placing the fuel tank below the aircraft’s wing). A new top-down technique called Build Blocks provides rapid volume mesh creation around selected meshes such as would be used for overset refinement. The ability to create surface meshes that are independent of geometry model topology has been simplified with the addition of a curve drawing mode that does not rely on the geometry model’s parametric space.

Voxel blocks are a new top-down, volume mesh generation technique that quickly encapsulates a boundary layer resolved mesh within a Cartesian grid. Mesh adaptation through the use of sources for overset interpolation remediation now influences the surface mesh in addition to the volume mesh.

Mesh quality assessment now includes filters by which cell visibility can be limited to a range of metric values. Filters also provide the basis for creating point cloud sources for mesh adaptation via the new Snapshot capability. Planar cuts through a mesh can persist outside of the Examine command for monitoring the effect of mesh changes on mesh quality.

Pointwise Version 18.1 also extends the software’s plugin API to provide users with the ability to add, at runtime, their own mesh import capabilities. V18.1 is delivered with new mesh importers for FUN3D, CFD++, OpenFOAM, SU2, CRUNCH, ANSYS CFX and ANSYS Fluent.

For more info, visit Pointwise.

Sources: Press materials received from the company.