The prism mesh process generates prism elements near boundary surfaces from tetrahedral volume or triangular surface mesh. There are two main processes:
The post inflation process creates prisms between the boundary shells and the adjacent tetrahedral elements. The process can remove tetrahedral elements and smooth the mesh to yield the necessary quality as the inflation layer grows into the existing volume mesh. The resulting prisms are made conformal with the existing tetrahedral volume mesh.
The pre inflation process first creates the boundary layer elements from the surface mesh. The remaining volume is then filled with unstructured mesh. If a volume mesh exists, it is first removed. If no surface mesh exists, it must first be generated from the geometry.
Note:This process is available using the Fluent Meshing executable, run in batch from ICEM CFD.
Pre inflation prism meshing (Fluent Meshing method) requires either a volume mesh or material point to define a direction for prism growth.
To define a direction for pre-inflation prism growth into a volume containing more than one region of the same material due to an internal wall, an initial volume mesh (for example, tetrahedral by octree method) is needed.