Harpoon Converts Surface Mesh to Volume

By DE Editors

CEI (Apex, NC) announced a new feature in its Harpoon extreme mesher that it says enables a surface mesh to be converted easily and quickly into a volume mesh. Harpoon, developed by Sharc Ltd. (Manchester, U.K.), uses proprietary algorithms to generate high-quality, body-fitted hex meshes for FEA and CFD applications.

"The new matched-meshing feature is perfect for those who want to retain their investment in surface meshes while taking advantage of the speed and quality of hex meshing within Harpoon," says Kent Misegades, CEI's president.

Matched meshing in Harpoon uses a Delaunay meshing algorithm to match the triangular surface mesh with the hex mesh. It is controlled on a per-part basis, giving users the flexibility to designate some parts of the mesh as tetrahedra and others as cubes. Features such as zero-thickness parts (thin walls) can be matched, and all other Harpoon functionality, including boundary layers, can be applied to the mesh.

Matched meshing comes on the heels of major additions to Harpoon introduced last month, including the Wrapper feature for fixing poor CAD geometry, 64-bit support, and a Windows installer.

Matched meshing is free to existing Harpoon users, and available to others in the latest version of the software. More information on Harpoon and trial versions is available by visiting sharc.co.uk or ensight.com websites.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.