Controlling Adaptive Meshing and Time-Stepping

Adaptive meshing refines the mesh locally along the interface between air and water when these two phases form a free surface or VOF blobs under the control of the VOF model. A phase interface is detected over a maximum of 10 cells, and cells that fulfill the refinement criterion can be refined up to four times.

You control the time-step by using the Free Surface CFL Condition, which sets the time-step based on the convective Courant number (CFL number) weighted by the rate of change of volume fraction.

To control adaptive meshing and time-stepping:

  1. Select the Physics 1 > Models > Adaptive Mesh node and set the following properties:
    Property Setting
    Limit Cell size Activated
    Min. Adaption Cell Size 0.003 m
  2. Right-click the Adaptive Mesh > Adaptive Mesh Criteria node and select New > Free Surface Mesh Refinement.
  3. Select the Free Surface Mesh Refinement node and set the following properties:
    Property Setting
    Max Refinement Level 4
    Resolution Criterion for Interface Detection 10.0
  4. Right-click the Adaptive Time-Step > Time-Step Providers node and select New > Free Surface CFL Condition.
  5. Save the simulation.