STAR-CD STAR-CD es-ice: Star setup fails
2023-01-26T01:41:52.000-0500
STAR-CD
Summary
In some situations, Star setup may fail with misleading error message "Could not find the piston and dome vertices. This probably means that the cylinder wall vertices were not gathered into Vset 10."
Details
There are many reasons for Star setup to fail in es-ice. Most of the time the error message leads to the underlying problem but unfortunately this is not always the case. In this FAQ, the Star setup failure is caused by an incorrect cells selection for the fixed refinement cells, see also Meshing strategy on how to apply two level spark plug refinement for gasoline internal combustion engine within es-ice. This type of problem will likely happen when the meshing pipeline is done via scripting. It is less likely to happen if it is done interactively.
In the example below, the cells selection for the fixed refinement cells, shown in the picture below, is incorrect. If the user attempts to run Star setup, es-ice will generate the following error message: "Could not find the piston and dome vertices. This probably means that the cylinder wall vertices were not gathered into Vset 10.". If the user ONLY selects the top part, see picture below, to be the fixed refinement cells, this problem could have been avoided. The refinement cannot include columns of cells from the piston to the dome surfaces.
In the example below, the cells selection for the fixed refinement cells, shown in the picture below, is incorrect. If the user attempts to run Star setup, es-ice will generate the following error message: "Could not find the piston and dome vertices. This probably means that the cylinder wall vertices were not gathered into Vset 10.". If the user ONLY selects the top part, see picture below, to be the fixed refinement cells, this problem could have been avoided. The refinement cannot include columns of cells from the piston to the dome surfaces.