Meshing Small Gaps
Hello,
I am trying to mesh a step file of a 2D plain weave that I exported from a geometry generation software called TexGen. The model (see attached) contains yarns and a matrix (rectangular prism) that surrounds the yarns. I need to create a conformal, 3D tetrahedral mesh with small elements around the yarn surfaces and larger elements in the matrix. I also want to insert spherical and elliptical pores using GMSH into the matrix. Currently, my workflow for inserting the pores and meshing is the following: 1. Merge the .stp file and set geometry kernel to openCASCADE 2. Insert a spherical pore into the matrix 3. Apply a “Coherence”/Boolean fragments operation to prevent the matrix (the rectangular prism) mesh from overlapping with the yarns. 4. Delete the spherical pore 5. Specify a small element size within the yarns, and a larger element size within the matrix. When I try meshing, it fails I presume because the small gaps near the yarn cross overs create high aspect ratios and element distortion (there is a warning stating that there are 20 elements with Jacobian < 0).
What is your recommendation for solving this problem? Is there a way to overcome this issue in GMSH? For example, if there is a small gap of matrix separating the yarns, can I merge this gap? I am considering performing mesh refinement near these overlaps, but this would require extremely small elements and substantially increase computational cost.
Thanks!