Development of a fast structured mesh generation tool and its application in metallurgical simulation

Structured grid usually enables higher computational fidelity and better convergence when calculating high-precision complex simulation problems, but its generation is difficult and time-consuming; how to quickly generate quality structured grid is a frontier topic in various simulation scenarios, such as CFD. According to the geometric structure characteristics of metallurgical vessels, the concept of parametric modeling and mesh generation has been adopted to successfully develop rapid mesh generation tool suitable for metallurgical reactors, by using the advantages of batch data processing of Python script and open-source CFD software OpenFOAM. Taking ladle-tundish-mold and its auxiliary connecting device as an example, the tool is examined. The results show that the generated grid has high quality by checking distortion and orthogonality, which can meet the needs of various simulation. This tool shows obvious advantages over traditional pretreatment methods in solving the geometric structure update and mesh adjustment of metallurgical vessels, and can quickly generate high-quality structured mesh in tens of seconds. In addition, a user-friendly graphical user interface has been developed, in which only the key geometric structure and mesh parameters are needed, and the corresponding structured mesh can be generated conveniently; it can effectively improve the simplicity and efficiency of pre-processing. This tool is expected to be applied to a variety of scenarios in the development of digitalization and intelligent transformation for metallurgical industry, and provide effective support in terms of industrial software.