Adaptive Hybrid Grid Generation for Turbomachinery and Aerospace Applications

2nd Symposium on Trends in Unstructured Mesh Generation, University of Colorado, Boulder, August 1999

MESHING
RESEARCH
CORNER

Dept. of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712
aly@acelab.ae.utexas.edu

Abstract
A hybrid prismatic/tetrahedral grid generation method is described and applied to complex turbomachinery and aerospace geometries. The high aspect ratio prisms cover the region close to each body's surface for good resolution of viscous gradients, while tetrahedra tessellate the rest of the domain. An adaptive prismatic grid redistribution scheme is used to better resolve boundary layers. The work introduces the concepts of multi-zone mesh generation and local variation of the number of prismatic layers (unstructured prism generation). Both these ideas are aimed to allow different levels of grid resolution within the same geometry and to treat disparate geometric length scales. The grid generator is tested with various complex geometries and the resulting hybrid meshes are presented. The applicability of the adaptive hybrid grid generator over the wide range of geometries with minimal user interaction demonstrates the robustness and universality of the method. The validity of the generated grids is tested via turbulent flow simulations.