Copy
For meshing sequences that are based on a geometry, use a Copy node () to copy meshes within the same meshing sequence or between different meshing sequences (belonging to the same or different components). The dimension of the source meshing sequence must be less than or equal to the dimension of the destination meshing sequence. You can also copy a mesh from a mesh part.
Figure 8-30: Copy the source mesh (yellow) to the destination domains (magenta) with a Copy operation using the method Array copy (one-to-one). The image to the right shows the resulting mesh after building the operation.
The Copy feature can be useful if you start off with an imported mesh and then want to modify it by adding a boundary layer mesh or running a solver that modifies it, such as the adaptive solver. It also makes it possible to add geometry, such as for defining a surrounding domain, to an imported mesh while still keeping the imported mesh on the “original geometry”. Use the following steps to copy an imported mesh into another component’s geometry:
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In the new component’s meshing sequence, add a Copy feature that makes it possible to copy the imported mesh into this mesh.
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To copy a mesh:
Right-click the Mesh node and select Copy (). In 3D, do this from the More Operations menu.
Select Copy () from the Copy menu () on the Mesh ribbon.
Enter the properties for the mesh copying operation using the following sections:
Source Mesh
From the Mesh list, select the meshing sequence or mesh part to copy from (or None, which is the default in 1D); then (for meshing sequences only) click Copy to copy the updated source mesh. By default, the meshing sequence in which the Copy node resides is selected. When this sequence is selected, the Copy button is unavailable. If you have parameterized the geometry or mesh and plan to run a parametric sweep, select the Build source mesh automatically check box to ensure that the source mesh and geometry are updated before copying. Otherwise, you have to manually rebuild the source mesh and click the Copy button if you want to use an updated source mesh. Click the Go to Source button () to move to the main Mesh node of the source mesh.
The sections below are available for 2D and 3D meshes only.
Dimension
Select the geometric entity level of the copy from the Geometric entity level list. The possible choices are Entire geometry, Domain (the default), Boundary, or Edge (3D only). For Entire geometry, the sections below are not available.
Source Entities
Use this section to select the entities to copy mesh from in the specified source mesh. From the Selection list, choose All domains (for example) or choose Manual to pick the entities from the Graphics window. Click the Active button to toggle between turning ON and OFF selections. Select the entities to copy the mesh from in the Graphics window. If you activate this selection, the Graphics window shows the mesh of the source sequence such that you can select entities in this mesh.
Click the Swap Source and Destination button () to swap the entities in the source list above and the entities in the destination list in the Destination Entities section below.
Destination Entities
This section is similar to the Source Entities section above, but you use it to define the geometric entities in the destination to which you want to copy the mesh.
Type of Copy
Select Automatic (the default) to let the software determine the proper copy method, select Single copy (all-to-one) to let the entire source mesh be copied onto each destination entity separately, and select Array copy (one-to-one) to let each single source entity mesh be copied onto one entity per destination component.
Figure 8-31: Copy of domain source mesh (highlighted in yellow) to the destination domains (highlighted in magenta). The result differs depending on which Type of copy setting is used. With the setting Single copy (all-to-one), the mesh of all source domains are copied to each of the destination domains (upper-right image). With the setting Array copy (one-to-one), the mesh of each source domain is copied to each destination domain (lower-right image).
Array copy (one-to-one) can be used only if a bijective transformation of source to destination can be found (a transformation that sets one-to-one mapping between source and destination).
The Array copy (one-to-one) setting also supports copy from one or several connected components of meshed domains, to several other similar components, as shown in Figure 8-32.
Figure 8-32: Array copy of the mesh in the source component (highlighted in yellow) to the destination components (highlighted in magenta). The resulting mesh is shown in the image to the right. Note that some faces are hidden for visibility.
Use the Automatic setting to let the software choose between Single copy (all-to-one), Array copy (one-to-one), or a mixture of the two. Figure 8-33 shows a mix of Single copy (all-to-one) and Array copy (one-to-one).
Figure 8-33: With Type of copy set to Automatic, it is possible to get a mix of Single copy (all-to-one) and Array copy (one-to-one). The source mesh (yellow) is copied to the destination domains (magenta) using one Copy operation with the Automatic setting. The first domain to the right of the source will be copied to using Single copy (all-to-one). The rest of the domain components are examples of Array copy (one-to-one) where the destination components have been rotated and some of them scaled to show the flexibility of the operation. The image to the right shows the resulting mesh.
Control Entities
Select the Smooth across removed control entities check box to smooth the transition in element size across removed control entities. You can specify the number of smoothing iterations in the Number of iterations field. In the Maximum element depth to process field you can specify the maximum element depth, from the removed control entity.
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