The options available for the Boundary Conditions node depend on whether the project is set up for automatic mesh generation or for use of a body-fitted mesh (body-fitted could be either a mesh created with the built-in Sector Mesh Generator or an imported mesh). The following paragraphs describe the setup for body-fitted meshes and automatic mesh generation.

Body-fitted Mesh

For body-fitted meshes, the boundary conditions must be specified as flags associated with the boundaries in the mesh itself, following the KIVA-3V export convention. In this case, after importing the mesh, the boundaries will already appear in the Boundary Conditions list and the mapping between the boundary and the geometry surface is already defined. For these boundaries, you need only set the parameter values and options associated with the boundary condition, since the boundary/surface mapping is handled by the imported mesh flags.

Automatic Mesh Generation

For automatic mesh generation, the Boundary Conditions icon bar is used to create new boundaries and has the following options: New Inlet  , New Outlet  , and New Wall  . Use these icons to open an Editor panel, which will allow you to associate boundary conditions with geometry surfaces and then specify the boundary conditions.

Once you have created a new boundary entity, the boundary (Inlet, Wall, Outlet, etc.) node allows you to associate the Geometry surface in the Location selection sub-panel. To see the surface highlighted in the 3-D View or to use the mouse to select, use the Select from screen   icon to enable interactive screen selection. Click the Screen icon again to toggle the screen-selection mode OFF.

After the boundary-surface mapping is done for a given boundary, the input of boundary-condition information on the Boundary Editor panels is generally the same for both body-fitted mesh and automatic mesh generation. These panels are described in Inlet Panel through Wall Boundary.