Morph Surface Mesh

The Morph Surface Mesh operation allows you to morph (deform) a surface mesh based on a displacement field that you supply. The resulting surface is stored as a new description for the selected input parts.

In shape optimization workflows, you can use the Morph Surface Mesh operation within a simulation operations loop (see Simulation Operations). This method is the recommended approach for shape optimization applications that involve large deformations of the initial geometry.

During the meshing loop, the first execution of the Morph Surface Mesh operation creates an initial copy of the input surface mesh. In subsequent remeshing steps, any changes to the input surface mesh or to the Morph Surface Mesh operation settings reset the input surface mesh to this initial state.

You can instruct Simcenter STAR-CCM+ to evaluate the supplied displacement field on either the surface mesh or the volume mesh. In the first case, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ morphs the surface mesh directly based on the supplied displacement field. In the second case, Simcenter STAR-CCM+ first maps the displacement field from the volume mesh to the surface mesh then morphs the surface mesh based on the mapped displacement field. This approach requires a volume mesh before executing the operation.

Morph Surface Mesh Properties

The following properties are available for the Morph Surface Mesh operation.


Displacement Field	Specifies the displacement field function to morph a surface mesh. A displacement field function is a vector field that defines how the mesh is displaced from one position to another for all locations.
Input Parts	Specifies the parts that you want to morph.
Part Surfaces Mode	Allows you to include or exclude specific part surfaces in the morph operation. The options available are: All part surfaces Include part surfaces Exclude part surfaces
Input Part Surfaces	Specifies the part surfaces you want to include or exclude in the morph operation, depending on your choice for Part Surfaces Mode.
Evaluate Field on Surface	When activated, the displacement field function is evaluated on the surface description instead of the volume mesh. No volume mesh is required before executing the operation.

Morph Surface Mesh

The image below shows an example of using the morph surface mesh operation in a shape optimization workflow.

Note	Deformation at the junction between a symmetry plane and a deformed wall surface is not supported.