How to cut a high order surface mesh
Hello,
I was wondering if it is possible to cut a 3D surface mesh with a flat plane, and recover the cut elements?
Indeed, in some cases, the (surface) mesh can be quite long to generate. Thus, it is easier to perform boolean operations, intersections for instance, directly on the mesh, and not on the geometry. Also, the mesh is not modified, except at the intersection region, reducing the mesh size sensitivity.
For a practical application, I was thinking at the hydrostatic equilibrium of a ship: you need to mesh all the hull surface, including the part above the free surface. But when you want to impose the hydrostatic equilibrium (through a given ship weight), you need to sinkage, heel and trim angles, cut the surface mesh at the free surface, compute the water pressure integral on the immersed mesh, and repeat the process again up to convergence.
It is possible to cut flat triangle elements in a simple way, but it is much more cumbersome for curved elements, and maybe some functions are available in gmsh?
Thank you for your help, Pierre