Geometrical morphology¶
The goal is to create spatially three-dimensional CAD geometry of foam morphology. At this moment, only closed-cell foams without struts are supported. Creation of closed-cell foams with struts and open-cell foams is possible through Structured meshing, which does not need morphology defined in CAD format.
Closed-cell foams without struts¶
These foams consist only of cells and thin walls. They can be characterized by cell size distribution and porosity or by cell size distribution and wall thickness. Strut content in these foams is zero.
Inputs¶
Required inputs are the *Tessellation.geo
file, which is created by
tessellation (see Tessellation), and wall thickness, which can be
provided through CLI or configurational file.
Execution¶
Foam can be created by running:
foamgen -m
This produces foam morphology similar to this one:
Outputs¶
The main output is the *Morphology.geo
file, which contains the foam
morphology that can be read by gmsh
. The file defines periodic faces for
meshing purposes and two physical volumes. Physical volume for cells:
Physical volume for walls:
Files *Cells.geo
and *Walls.geo
contain exactly same morphology before
it was moved to a periodic box. File *CellsBox.brep
and *WallsBox.brep
contain the morphology in OpenCASCADE format (without definition of periodicity
and physical volumes).
Implementation¶
The walls are created by insetting (shrinking) each cell. The walls are then defined as the difference between the original and shrunken cell.
The translation of the original foam into a periodic box is achieved using gmsh OpenCASCADE kernel. Unfortunately, this step and subsequent checking for point duplicity is very time consuming. This should be investigated further.
Closed-cell foams with struts¶
Currently not supported. Hopefully will be added soon.
Open-cell foams¶
Currently not supported. Hopefully will be added soon.