What Are Interfaces?

Interfaces provide a connection between boundaries during the simulation meshing setup and/or analysis process.

They are always composed of boundary pairs, either in the same region or in different regions. There can be many (or zero) interfaces in a simulation.

When using the surface remesher, tetrahedral, polyhedral or prism layer meshers, interfaces may be defined to ensure that a conformal mesh is obtained between regions or within the same region if a baffle plane is required.

In a volume mesh, interfaces permit mass, energy and other continuum quantities to pass from one region to another. In the illustration below, the dotted black line indicates the location of the interfaces that are created using the coincident boundaries between each region:

Interfaces have a topology and a type associated with them. In general, the topology refers to the physical arrangement of the interface boundaries. For example, in-place and repeating interfaces normally have coincident boundaries while a periodic interface has separated boundary pairs.

The interface type determines the modeling behavior of the interface. For example, depending on the topology selected, you can:

• Allow mass and energy to be exchanged between fluid and porous regions that have coincident boundary planes.
• Simulate baffles/porous baffles within a region.
• Provide a contact interface for heat transfer between fluid-solid and solid-solid regions.
• Specify a fully developed flow condition to simulate the pressure drop or mass-flow across a periodic (cyclic) across a region.