Currently working in scStream: Discovered by accident that I get substantially different flowfield results from the same part configuration when I have some parts virtual vs those same parts deleted (I run gridding/meshing after each change).
Apparently I don't fully understand what it means for a part to be virtual. Could someone explain, or point me to documentation that does explain the virtual concept as implemented in Cradle/scStream
Virtual parts, as the name implies, are parts that do not exist.
With virtual parts, you can switch between having or not having a geometry without having to delete the part.
Each virtual part is assumed to exist and its geometry is taken into account as a part subject to [Gridding/Meshing] setup in Preprocessor, but the elements belonging to the virtual part after [Meshing] are fluid elements.
If the analysis problem contains various parts and you want to see the difference between the analysis results with and without a particular part, virtual parts are used to avoid different meshes for both cases and evaluate them as the same mesh.
In the example shown below, the meshes on both the left and right sides are exactly the same.
