Symmetry-based decomposition for meshing quasi-axisymmetric components

Quasi-axisymmetric structural components are very common in any mechanical equipment containing rotating components, such as turbo machinery. Identifying and exploiting symmetric properties in these components is key to simplify the creation of FE volume meshes. In this paper, a novel approach is proposed to detect exact cyclic symmetries, in order to decompose a quasi-axisymmetric CAD component for FEA. Starting from a B-Rep CAD model, axisymmetric and cyclic repeated sectors are automatically identified to generate a subdivided representation, which can then be used to produce a good quality mesh. Using this new component structure, the resulting decomposition produces a reduced number of mesh-able sub-domains. Symmetry properties can then be inferred to generate the full component mesh from meshes on the individual sub-domains. The approach shows a major reduction of the geometry to be meshed leading to less manual intervention from the user.