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Meshing performance issue for perforated plate with ~21,600 holes
Posted 2026/02/19 2:49 GMT-5 Geometry, Mesh, Modeling Workflow 2 Replies
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I am trying to mesh a 3D perforated plate with ~21,600 small holes (diameter = 1. mm , pitch = 1.1 mm) for an electrostatic study. The mesh either stalls near 99% or produces low-quality elements in narrow regions. I found discussions in COMSOL Forum about meshing small gaps and holes causing issues (e.g., "Meshing issues - small gaps" and "The meshing don't go further than 99%"), but none address this scale (tens of thousands of perforations).
My questions:
- Is there any recommended mesh strategy for highly repetitive perforations?
- Should I use symmetry/periodicity or a unit cell approach?
- How can I reduce mesh complexity without losing field accuracy?
Any advice on handling large scale perforated mesh in 3D would be appreciated.
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I don't know the details of your problem, but this is the sort of problem that just screams out for a giant simplification. Symmetry applies if the physics of your problem exhibits any symmetry. It could be translational, rotational, or even something else. Let me ask you this: Suppose you (magically) knew the results for the fields in/around just one of these thousands of holes. From that knowledge, what does your understanding of the physics of your problem tell you about the fields in/around all the other holes, if anything? If, after much careful thought, all you can conclude is that it would tell you nothing useful at all, then it is unlikely that there is any symmetry you can exploit! On the other hand, if it would tell you a lot, then there very likely is a symmetry you can exploit.
If you post your model to the forum, you will likely receive much more focused/specific advice.
Finally, in a typical electrostatics problem, at any reasonable distance (e.g., more than a few hole spacings) away from a large perforated conducting plate, I would expect any potentials and fields to be very similar to those from a solid plate. So, I'm guessing you could model just a handful of those holes (e.g., an array of perhaps 25 holes instead of 21,600) and represent the rest of your plate by a solid. Then, if you care about the fields close-in to the holes, look at the fields in/around the middle region of your now vastly-smaller array of holes, in the middle of the plate. That will likely be representative of holes elsewhere in the plate too (at least, in many cases). But I would have to take a closer look at your geometry to be confident of the details. Regardless, I wouldn't bother to attempt to mesh 21,600 holes in full detail. Good luck.
-------------------Scientific Applications & Research Associates (SARA) Inc.
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First of all, I am really appreciate to your answer.
I think explaining my situation must be really cooperative to your help so please let me explain it. I have perforated 17 by 17 holes in the middle of the electrode plate such as a following photo. However, is it possible to mirror field map or mesh map 5 by 5 part among 17 by 17? If not visualising, at least mirroring field and mesh map in code to export must be useful for my study, since I have to export entire mesh and field map to Garfield++ now in one file for each datum.
If you cannot understand my question or need more information for answer, please do not hesitate to let me know. Thank you.
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