Mesh-driven resampling and regularization for robust point cloud-based flow analysis directly on scanned objects

Point cloud representations of three-dimensional objects have remained indispensable across a diverse array of applications, given their ability to represent complex real-world geometry with just a set of points. The high fidelity and versatility of point clouds have been utilized in directly performing numerical analysis for engineering applications, bypassing the labor-intensive and time-consuming tasks of creating analysis-suitable CAD models. However, point clouds exhibit various levels of quality, often containing defects such as holes, noise, and sparse regions, leading to sub-optimal geometry representation that can impact the stability and accuracy of any analysis study. This paper aims to overcome such challenges by proposing a novel method that expands upon our recently developed direct point cloud-to-CFD approach based on immersogeometric analysis. The proposed method features a mesh-driven resampling technique to fill any unintended gaps and regularize the point cloud, making it suitable for CFD analysis. Additionally, ghost penalty stabilization is employed for incompressible flow to improve the conditioning and stability compromised by the small cut elements in immersed methods. The developed method is validated against standard benchmark geometries and real-world point clouds obtained in-house with photogrammetry. Results demonstrate the proposed framework’s robustness in facilitating CFD simulations directly on point clouds of varying quality, underscoring its potential for practical applications in analyzing real-world structures.