PMeshes are topological groups of element segments (in 2D) and element segments or faces (in 3D) located inside a mesh and are used to facilitate the definition of the problem at a later stage. The name for such groups derives from the phrase, "pointer to mesh". PMeshes are used as a replacement for boundary sets when a model must be defined on an internal part of a mesh in a dimension lower than the dimension of the subdomains (for example, in 1D or 2D for a 3D subdomain). These PMeshes can be either internal to the domain (located on a boundary or not) or external in a non-manifold topology.

PMeshes can be created in Ansys ICEM CFD, Ansys Meshing, PATRAN, and I-deas, as described in .poly Meshes Created with Ansys ICEM CFD or Ansys Meshing and Elements of Mixed Dimension and PMesh Generation. See Specifying Conditions Using Sub-Models for information about defining conditions on a PMesh using sub-models. PMeshes are typically used for bubbling in glass applications and for modeling internal radiation, as described in Bubblers and User Inputs for Internal Radiation Model, respectively.