25.4. Advanced Topic: Adaption with 2D Meshes

2D Meshes are not supported in CFX. However, CFX can use 3D meshes that are one element thick. This section outlines a workaround for such meshes when using mesh adaption.

CFX 2D meshes contain hexahedral, prismatic and potentially pyramidal and tetrahedral elements. In the support of prismatic inflation in 3D meshes, special restrictions are applicable to the adaption of prismatic elements. If adaption is applied to a 3D mesh that is one element thick, an error will result. In order to work around this, set the environment variable CFX5_REFINER_NO_TRICOLUMNS to 1 before starting CFX-Pre. Note that any refinement that takes place will be 3D refinement that will introduce additional elements in the third dimension. This environment variable can also be used when the input mesh has prismatic elements that have opposite triangular faces on the boundary. This can arise if the mesh has been imported from a mesh generation tool other than CFX-Mesh.