Gmsh cannot mesh element inside a volume - mesh

Question

I'm trying to make a mesh of a piece of beam with stirrup and bars, but I'm having some trouble with stirrup, it is inside the main domain, and I do not know how to solve it. I'm attaching the .geo file, hoping someone could help. Maybe there are other way to mesh it, I do not know.
SetFactory("OpenCASCADE");
// Input
Rectangle(1) = {0, 0, 0, 300, 300, 0};
Disk(2) = {50, 50, 0, 10, 10};
Disk(3) = {50,250,0,10,10};
Disk(4) = {250,250,0,10,10};
Disk(5) = {250,50,0,10,10};
Rectangle(6) = {30,30,146,240,240,10};
Rectangle(7) = {40,40,146,220,220,10};
// Start Operations
s() = BooleanFragments{ Surface{1}; Delete; }{ Surface{2,3,4,5}; Delete;};
ext() = Extrude{0,0,300} {Surface{s()}; Layers{10}; Recombine;};
st() = BooleanFragments{ Surface{6}; Delete;}{Surface{7}; Delete;};
Recursive Delete {Surface{7}; }
Extrude{0,0,10} {Surface{22}; Layers{10}; Recombine;}
BooleanFragments{ Volume{5}; Delete;}{Volume{6}; Delete;}
// Mesh Options all elements needs to be Hexa
Mesh.RecombineAll = 2;

Answer 1

Not a complete answer; however, I think I identified the problem that probably causes the major troubles:
The circular extrusions (cylinders) touch the stirrup exactly at the vertices, thus creating complications to OpenCASCADE-based BooleanFragments operation.
The following code:
SetFactory("OpenCASCADE");
// Input
Rectangle(1) = {0, 0, 0, 300, 300, 0};
Disk(2) = {52, 52, 0, 10, 10};
Disk(3) = {52,248,0,10,10};
Disk(4) = {248,248,0,10,10};
Disk(5) = {248,52,0,10,10};
Rectangle(6) = {30,30,146,240,240,10};
Rectangle(7) = {40,40,146,220,220,10};
// Start Operations
s() = BooleanFragments{ Surface{1}; Delete; }{ Surface{2,3,4,5}; Delete;};
ext() = Extrude{0,0,300} {Surface{s()}; Layers{10}; Recombine;};
st() = BooleanFragments{ Surface{6}; Delete;}{Surface{7}; Delete;};
Recursive Delete {Surface{7}; }
Extrude{0,0,10} {Surface{22}; Layers{10}; Recombine;}
BooleanFragments{ Volume{5}; Delete;}{Volume{6}; Delete;}
// Mesh Options all elements needs to be Hexa
Mesh.RecombineAll = 2;
where I slightly shifted the cylinders to the inside (50->52 and 250 -> 248) should not have the meshing problem.
However, this disconnects the cylinders from the loop and modifies the problem drastically. Here is a zoom on the problematic part in the original, unmodified setup.
So, what you required from the CAD tool, is to handle the merging of those two surfaces (the loop and the cylinder) automatically using BooleanFragments, which might be problematic, especially if one has to take floating-point arithmetic aspects into account.