Updating and re-meshing virtually decomposed models

Generating hexahedral meshes is often an expensive process, which limits the use of high-fidelity numerical simulation methods for design. Hexahedral meshes can be generated by decomposing a geometric model into simpler meshable regions, but robustly propagating design modifications to the decomposed representation makes any attempt to update the mesh very challenging. In this paper, a virtual topology workflow enabling automatic generation of hex-dominant meshes is extended to propagate parametric modifications and feature changes to the decomposition and resulting mesh. Geometric and topological modifications are identified and linked to the decomposition through virtual topology relationships. Modified regions are localized and reasoning on the virtual decomposition enables their definition and associated meshing strategy to be updated. Instead of starting the meshing process from the beginning, only modified cells are re-meshed. This provides an efficient and automated method to propagate design changes down to the analysis model.