CFD software sports an advanced hybrid mesher

CFD meshing software Pointwise Version 17 includes an advanced version of the T-Rex hybrid meshing technique for viscous flows as well as native readers for CAD files. According to the developer, the T-Rex technique (anisotropic tetrahedral extrusion) is a highly automated method for generating a hybrid mesh suitable for resolving boundary layers, wakes, and other features of a viscous flowfield. T-Rex extrudes layers of high-quality tetrahedra (with included right angles), avoids collisions with layers extruding from adjacent geometry, and optionally combines the layered tets into prisms. The technique ensures consistency of the volume mesh with the adjacent surface meshes, something which previously had to be managed manually. The new release can read geometry data from native CAD formats including ACIS, Catia V4, Catia V5, NX, Parasolid, Pro/Engineer, SolidWorks, and STEP. Importing directly from a native format bypasses the requirement to produce an IGES file and avoids the possible errors introduced by translating to an intermediate format. The readers, bundled into Pointwise, operate without a license of the CAD software. Pointwise Inc. B>, 213 South Jennings Ave., Fort Worth, TX 76104, (817) 377-2807, www.pointwise.com