Notes about the Pointwise grids : B1-HLCRM_UnstrTet_PW B2-HLCRM_UnstrPrismTet_PW B3-HLCRM_UnstrHexPrismPyrTet_PW The various grids are very closely related, as described below. Tet Grids - Triangular surface mesh is created on HL-CRM. - Each vertex on the surface mesh is deformed normal to the surface based on wall spacing. - Once each of the surface mesh vertices have been deformed; you have one layer of tetrahedra which is essentially equivalent to a stack of three right-angle tets on each surface triangle. - The triangle on top of this layer can then be deformed in the same manner and this process continues until the final right-angle tets in the stack of layers have hit an isotropic state, they have collided with a grid boundary or another front of the grid, or quality criteria have been violated. - The remainder of the volume is filled in with isotropic tets. Prism-Tet Grids - Triangular surface mesh is created on HL-CRM. - Each vertex on the surface mesh is deformed normal to the surface based on wall spacing. - Once each of the surface mesh vertices have been deformed; you have one layer of tetrahedra which is essentially equivalent to a stack of three right-angle tets on each surface triangle. - This stack of three right-angle tets are evaluated to determine if the prism that could be created from them would contain a negative component volume. In other words, Pointwise cannot predict how flow solver might decompose a prism so each of the 12 different ways a prism could be decomposed into 3 tets are reviewed and evaluated. If any of those decompositions result in one of the component tet volumes being negative, the three tets are not combined into a prism. - The triangle on top of this layer (whether it's the top of a right-angle tet or a prism) can then be deformed in the same manner to create a new layer. This layer is evaluated to see if an acceptable and valid prism would be created by the same process used in the previous step. - The stack of layers continue to grow until it hits an isotropic state, they have collided with a grid boundary or another front of the grid, or quality criteria have been violated. - The remainder of the volume is filled in with isotropic tets. Comparing the two techniques, it's not just a brute force combination of cells. There is the possibility that there could be a small pocket of tets in a few spots amongst the prisms if creating prisms would create negative volume cells. That being said, there does not appear to be very much of this in most grids, and they should be almost identical. Nonetheless, there is still the possibility of a small chunk of tets left uncombined. Hex-Prism-Pyr-Tet Grids These are formed in a similar manner, except at each layer we then evaluate if every pair of prisms could make an acceptable quality unstructured hex. If not, you could have a pocket of prisms sandwiched in the layers but this does not happen often. Once a complete stack of hexes has been created, the surface mesh underneath the stack has its two triangles combined into one unstructured quad. So the surface and volume mesh essentially retain the same vertex locations.