HeldenMesh: Eliminating the Bottleneck in CFD
HeldenMesh is a highly efficient and capable unstructured mesh generator designed specifically for use in CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analyses. It was developed by some of the aerospace industry's leading CFD applications experts and has been specifically designed to reduce time-to-mesh and deliver consistent, high quality meshes. Users of HeldenMesh have access to an entire suite of tools to guide them from starting CAD through geometry cleanup (HeldenTool, HeldenPatch) to CFD mesh (HeldenMesh) and even CFD-based design and optimization (HeldenDesign). Hundreds of thousands of Full-Viscous Navier-Stokes CFD solutions have been generated on HeldenMesh grids, making it a proven and production ready tool. HeldenMesh is used throughout government, industry, and academia for use in production CFD analyses and CFD-based research. New features, tools, and capabilities are being continually added and users have access to excellent training materials, tutorials, and support for all their mesh generation needs. The HeldenMesh suite of tools is easy for even novice CFD users to learn and capable enough for the industry’s leading experts.
Industry Leading Time to Mesh
Does it currently take you days of computing time to generate a billion cell mesh? Try 10 minutes… on a laptop! HeldenMesh is extremely fast at generating meshes and it has been extensively optimized for computational efficiency. In fact, no other commercial mesh generator in the world can generate meshes so quickly. HeldenMesh is capable of generation 100 million cell meshes on complex geometries in just a few minutes. Just imagine the time saved during the mesh generation process if you aren’t having to wait for it to compute. And all this without the need for high end computer hardware.
Efficient Anisotropic Stretching Everywhere
One of HeldenMesh’s most advanced capabilities is its ability to generate anisotropically stretched meshes on the surface, in the boundary layer, and even in the outer volume. Anisotropic stretching is a crucial feature of modern CFD meshing, as it allows the user to prescribe mesh resolution only in directions in which it is needed. It also can reduce the cell count of the mesh by an order of magnitude for the same effective resolution, increasing both the accuracy and the computational efficiency of the CFD analysis. HeldenMesh is the only commercial mesh generator which can do automated anisotropic stretching in the outer volume. This enables meshes to be made which capture shockwaves in the far-field for supersonic boom studies, jet effects in downstream of the body, and wake effects for drag breakdown studies. In fact, recent versions of HeldenMesh offer a method for automatically generating mesh resolution along a wake before a CFD solution is even generated! And because the meshes are anisotropically stretched, the cell count is only increased by 10-20%. This gives the user the ability to make their first mesh be their best mesh. Anisotropic stretching is compatible with any unstructured flow solver and results have been validated against thousands of meshes.
Cross Platform
HeldenMesh Suite is currently supported on Linux and macOS on architecture x86_64. Other operating systems and architectures can be supported since HeldenMesh Suite was developed with portability in mind (e.g., its port to the Raspberry Pi which utilizes the Arm architecture).
Support and Training
Having trouble getting a mesh? Email our support and receive same-day turnaround. Have suggestions to improve the code? Many of HeldenMesh's most important features have come from user requests. And we are continually improving the software and expanding its capabilities. Extensive training materials and tutorials are provided. We also offer virtual and onsite training opportunities.
Focus on Automation
What’s the single biggest hurdle to generating a mesh? It’s typically the labor required to preprocess the geometry. With HeldenMesh comes a 3D graphical user interface (GUI) called HeldenTool which automates most of the geometry cleanup and pre-processing. Simply read an IGES file in, hit clean, and most of the work is done for you. HeldenTool also provides a host of automated functions for fixing bad geometries and manipulating the underlying CAD definition with minimal labor. When you’re ready to mesh, simply click over to the HeldenMesh setup window and automatically generate a standard set of inputs. One of the main advantages of HeldenMesh is how simple it is set up mesh spacing. Mesh spacing can be keyed off of geometric characteristics (curvature, CAD patch names, sharp edges, etc) or it can be user-prescribed with a wide range of 3D sources. Just inputting a few numbers will generate a high-quality mesh suitable for most CFD analysis. Once the meshing setup is finished, users can then run HeldenMesh from the HeldenTool interface or output file files and generate the mesh remotely from a terminal. When the mesh is built, read it into HeldenTool and inspect the surface and volume mesh if you desire! Users can compare geometry, mesh spacing, and mesh all with a few clicks. Users can easily tweak settings, regenerate the mesh, and compare the effects all within HeldenTool. Mesh sensitivity studies are just a few keystrokes away.
Don’t want a GUI? Do you want the mesh generation process to be invisible? Try HeldenPatch. HeldenPatch is a command-line based tool with access to many of the HeldenTool functions. HeldenPatch is also compatible with bash and python scripting approaches to completely automate mesh generation and manipulation. Many HeldenMesh users have been able to completely automate the entire mesh generation process by tying their CAD output process to a script which automatically runs HeldenPatch and HeldenMesh. This has been shown to be most effective and useful during the conceptual design phase.
Robust, High Quality Meshes
HeldenMesh utilizes a custom Advancing-Layers and Advancing-Front unstructured mesh generation method to generate mixed element layer meshes. A triangular surface mesh is generated with prismatic elements generated in the boundary layer and surrounded by tetrahedral elements. HeldenMesh utilizes a background sourcing method to calculate mesh spacing, resulting in a smooth distribution of cell spacing throughout the volume field. The mesh generation process is also extremely robust. Meshes on extremely complex geometries containing tens of thousands of CAD surfaces are possible, as well as meshing in geometries with thin gaps and cracks. HeldenMesh also offers numerous capabilities for identification of bad geometry and rapid debugging during the mesh generation process. HeldenMesh also has a quasi-2D meshing mode which enables the user to run 2D meshing studies using 3D CFD codes.
Minimal Resources
Going hand-in-hand with fast mesh generation times, HeldenMesh also generates meshes with minimal memory requirements. HeldenMesh can generate a 1 billion cell mesh using less than 6 GB of RAM. In fact, HeldenMesh typically uses less RAM to generate a mesh than is used to store the mesh on the hard drive! Because of this, HeldenMesh can be run on a wide variety of machines from Raspberry Pi’s through low end laptops all the way up to supercomputer clusters. That provides CFD users with great flexibility in where and how they work.
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