HelicalChain
The HelicalChain class provides a class definition for a generation of unit cells with inclusions distributed in a helical chain. The class inherits from the InclusionRVE class and extends it in order to specify the remaining placeholder methods of the GenericModel.
Currently, the class is restricted to circular and spherical inclusions which are arranged in a helical chain that is parallel to one of the coordinate axes.
Class Definition
- class gmshModel.Model.HelicalChain.HelicalChain(chainRadius=None, theta=None, inclusionRadius=None, numberCells=[1, 1, 1], size=None, inclusionType=None, chainDirection=[0, 0, 1], origin=[0, 0, 0], periodicityFlags=[1, 1, 1], domainGroup='domain', inclusionGroup='inclusions', gmshConfigChanges={})[source]
Bases:
InclusionRVEClass definition for helical chains (circular and spherical inclusions only)
This class provides required information for meshes of unit cells with helical chains. It inherits from the InclusionRVE class and extends its attributes and methods to handle the geometry generation, boolean operations and the definition of physical groups.
The HelicalChain class currently supports spherical and circular inclusions which are arranged in a chain that is parallel to one of the coordinate axes. The slope of the chain is determined from the passed size of the chain, the angle theta between neighboring inclusions (pi for circular inclusions, since it is the only reasonable choice) and the chain axis. One unit cell is supposed to contain one full helix.
Attributes:
- dimension: int
dimension of the model instance
- chainRadius: float
radius of the helical chain
- inclusionRadius: float
radius of the helical chain inclusions
- theta: float
angle (radian) between two inclusions of the helical chain
- chainDirection: list/array
array defining the chain axis direction -> currently restricted to chains parallel to one of the coordinate axes
- numberCells: list/array
array providing the number of cells in the individual axis directions -> numberCells=[nx, ny, (nz)]
- size: list/array
size of the helical chains surrounding unit cell (box-shaped cell) -> if the angle alpha is passed, only the sizes perpendicular to the chain axis direction have to be passed -> size=[Lx, Ly, (Lz)]
- origin: list/array
origin of the unit cell -> origin=[Ox, Oy, (Oz)]
- inclusionType: string
string defining the type of inclusion -> inclusionType= “Sphere”/”Circle”
- relevantAxes: list/array
array defining the relevant axes for distance calculations
- periodicityFlags: list/array
flags indicating the periodic axes of the unit cell -> periodicityFlags=[0/1, 0/1, 0/1]
- inclusionInfo: array
array containing relevant inclusion information (center, radius) for distance calculations
- domainGroup: string
name of the group the unit cells domain should belong to
- inclusionGroup: string
name of the group the unit cells inclusions should belong to
- gmshConfigChanges: dict
dictionary for user updates of the default Gmsh configuration
- defineBooleanOperations()[source]
Overwritten method of the GenericModel class to define the required boolean operations for the model generation
- defineGeometricObjects()[source]
Overwritten method of the GenericModel class to define and create the required geometric objects for the model generation
- definePhysicalGroups(**args)[source]
Overwritten method of the GenericModel class to define the required physical groups for the model mesh generation
In order to be able to assign different material properties to different regions in the generated mesh, physical groups are used in Gmsh to combine different regions into one group. The additional definition of a boundary group allows to identify the boundary of the mesh without searching for elements on the boundary within the solver.