CL Basic Tutorial Step 6

Step 6: Setting Interval Sizes

The volume shown in Step 5 will be meshed by sweeping a surface mesh from one side of the brick to the other. Before generating any mesh, the user must specify the size of the elements to be generated. In this example, one element size will be specified for the volume as a whole and a smaller size will be specified for around the hole. A direct interval setting will be specified for the sweep direction.

To set the interval size for the overall volume, enter the command

cubit> volume 1 size 1.0

Since the brick is 10 units in length on a side, this specifies that each straight curve is to receive approximately 10 mesh elements.

In order to better resolve the hole in the middle of the top surface, we set a smaller size for the curve bounding this hole. To find the id number of the curve bounding the hole, the user can either pick the curve (See Selecting Entities with the Mouse) or turn curve labels on and regenerate the view. To do the latter, use the command

cubit> label curve on

cubit> display

The default size of the labels can sometimes be too small to read. To change the text size, use the graphics text size command:

cubit> graphics text size 2

cubit> display

The result is shown in the figure below. Then the interval size can be set for the appropriate curve:


Geometry with Curve Labeling

Geometry with Curve Labeling Turned on

cubit> curve 16 interval size 0.78

Finally, we would like to generate exactly 5 element layers in the sweep direction. This is accomplished by setting the intervals on curve 11:

cubit> curve 11 interval 5