Lecture One: Introduction to the CFD

The basic procedure for CFD simulation

Preprocessing
(1)Geometry definition (2)Discrization (3)Physical modeling (4)Boundary conditions

Simulation
(1)Solver definition (2)solving

Post-processing
(1) Plot results (2) Conclusions wall Flow wall

Pre-processing ICEM

Fluent Package

Solving Post-processing

Pre-processing
Fluid domain definition (Geometry) Mesh Generation Boundary condition definition

Principle of fluid domain definition

Bottom up method: (1)key points (2)Lines (3)Surfaces (4)Volume(3D)
Step 1 Geo 1

Step 2

Step 3 The domain should be closed by lines to form face

Principle of fluid domain definition

Geo 2

Step 1

Step 2 Step 3

Principle of fluid domain definition

Step 1 Step 2

Using Curves

Step 3

ICEM is a specialized software to create the geometry, mesh and boundary conditions for Fluent; in the following slices we will use ICEM for the pre-processing.
From Start menu All programs Ansys Ansys CFD ICEM

Introduction to the ICEM

Problem specification:
14cm P1 1cm Inlet outlet P2 2cm P3 1cm 12cm P4 P5 P6

Fluid: Water; 2D problem The coordinates for the 6 points: P1: 0, 0.01, 0 P2: 0, 0, 0 P3: 0.02, 0, 0 P4: 0.02, -0.01, 0 P5:0.14, -0.01, 0 P6:0.14, 0.01, 0 Therefore z coordinate is the same Note: Because the default unit system in Fluent for length is m, so in order to make it easy, the length unit we use in ICEM is assumed to be m.

strategies
Bottom-up approach: point line surface volume

Here we use Bottom-up approach, that is from point line surface

Procedure
Step 1, start the ICEM
From Start menu All programs Ansys Ansys CFD ICEM

open save undo redo

Main Window
Function Tabs

Zoom in or out Fit the window

Main graphic window

Display Control Tree Message window

Procedure
Point Line Surface

Step 2, choose the proper working directory all geometry and mesh files will be stored in that directory
File Change Working Dir

Choose the directory you want to save, such as C:/lecture1

Step 3 Create the initial points

(1) (2) (3) (4) (1) Choose Geometry tab (2) Click for creating points,

(3)remain the part name to be GEOM (4) Click explicit locations (5) Choose Create 1 Point in the list

(5) (6)

(6) Input x y z coordinates (7) Click apply for creation (8) Create other points from step 5 to 6 (9) When you finish creation, click dismiss to quit the panel. The coordinates for the 6 points: P1: 0, 0.01, 0 P2: 0, 0,0 P3: 0.02, 0,0 P5:0.14,-0.01,0 P6:0.14, 0.01,0 P4: 0.02, -0.01,0

(7)

Click

to show points in the whole window, you can find it in the left corner of toolbar

6 points can be found in the black background Note: make sure the part name is unique for one geometry, in this example, when you want to create points and lines , check the part name to be GEOM, or the name you have given in the beginning.

Other operations (1)enquiry the point information

(a) In the toolbar (left corner), left click the third icon then choose location icon to open the list,

(b) Mouse cursor becomes a cross, move the cursor to one point, and left click that point

(c) Using middle mouse button to finish (d) Scrolling middle mouse wheel to zoom in and zoom out

(a) In Geometry tab, choosing delete point icon

(2) delete the unwanted points

(b) In the Delete Point panel, choosing selecting points icon

(c) In the main window, a toolbar appear to help you to choose, and a line of red text explains how to choose. Using left button to choose, right button to cancel, middle button to finish (d) Click apply to delete points, dismiss to quit the panel If you have deleted one of the 6 points, please create it again.

Note: about selection in the main window by mouse During the selection procedure, the cursor changes the shape to be a cross, a toolbar appears to help the selection, move mouse to individual icon to see the hint (waiting for seconds )

A line of red text will show in the bottom

Left button : select several entities in an order, such as p1, p2 , p3, Right button: cancel the selection in a reversed order as selection, p3, p2, p1 Middle button: accept the selection
Note: it may automatically trigger the following function for the selection, for example, during the line creation, after you select two points, when click middle button, the line will be created, you do not need to click the apply button for creation. Check the output information for the actions done by middle mouse button

Procedure
Point Line Surface

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Step 4 Create the lines (1)Geometry tab create lines

from points
(2) keep the part to be GEOM (3) choose selecting points icon (4) Choose two points in the main window (5) Click apply to create one line (6) Repeat step 2 to 4 to create other lines

Make sure that all the lines are created around the step pipe

Other operations Delete unwanted lines (Geometry Tab) Undo Rotate in the graphic window hold left mouse button + move Rotate 2 hold right mouse button + move Translate hold middle mouse button + move

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Choosing Front in From view menu to restore the view if the points are not shown properly

Boundary Definition

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Computer does not know where is fluid domain, it is your job to tell it
(a) Where is the fluid region? (b) What is the type of fluid? Air, water or blood? (c) Fluid direction, from where and where to go? (d) Boundaries to constrain the fluid flow, such as wall, symmetry boundary

wall Inlet Fluid domain wall Inlet:

Velocity Mass flow rate Pressure

outlet

Outlet:
Velocity Mass flow rate Pressure

Wall:
Non-slip Slip

Check Model Control Tree

Under Parts: The GEOM is the geometry you have created

Now we need to define inlet, outlet, wall, fluid domain in GEOM

wall Inlet Fluid domain wall outlet

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Step 1: Define fluid domain (a) In Geometry tab, choose Create Body icon

(b) Change the name, usually BODY (c) Choose Create Material Point (d) Turn on Centroid of 2 points (e) Click to define two screen locations
Location 1

Click left button in upper and lower walls, middle mouse button to accept the selection

Location 2

(f) OK to finish

Model Control Tree view

The created body is showed in the main window

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Step 2: define inlet

(a) At model control tree view, right click Parts (b) From the menu, select Create Part The panel for creating part

(c) Change the part name to be Inlet (d) Select create part by selection (e) Click select entries (f) In the main window, select the edge for Inlet boundary. Left click to select, middle button to accept. When selected, the line will be highlighted

inlet

(g) Click Apply (h) Check the parts in model control tree view
INLET will be added. when you turn off inlet, the edge will disappear in the main window, this step can be used to verify the boundary creation

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Step 3: Create Outlet Boundary

outlet

Model control tree view

Step 4: select the left edges for Wall

Edges for wall boundary

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Check model control tree view There are: GEOM INLET OUTLET WALL

You can turn off to check where those parts are, now GEOM only represents created points, you can change the name to be points, or leave it

Save the geometry file from File Menu

Mesh: Principle
Divide the computational domain into small parts, on which the computation will be performed
Basic element shape Step 1
Define the division along the lines

Step 2
Divide the region based on the line division

E1 E4

E2 E5

E3 E6

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Triangular Mesh

Fine Mesh

More controls on mesh density

Fine mesh

Some concerns about the mesh quality (a) Fine mesh in the region of interest, such as at the step region (b) Fine mesh near the wall (c) Fine mesh in the abrupt change of the geometry

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Mesh

Lines

Surface

Blocking Strategy For Mesh Generation ANSYS ICEM CFD Blocking provides a projection-based mesh generation environment where, by default, all block faces between different materials are projected to the closest CAD surfaces.

edge4 edge1 edge2 Block edge3

Curve 4 Curve 1 Curve 2 Geometry Curve 3

The association between Block to the geometry is : Edge1 Curve1 Edge2 Curve2 The mesh generation in Block will be projected to Edge3 Curve3 the corresponding geometry by defined Edge4 Curve4 association

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Steps in Blocking Meshing

(a) Create and split blocks, discard unused blocks to capture underlying shape (b) Associate edges to curves to capture hard features. Move vertices to position block corners on geometry (c) Assign mesh sizes such as maximum element size

(d) Automatically generate mesh (e) Write Output files to the desired solvers.

Blocking strategy in the example

(a) Initialize Block

(b) Split block

Geometry (c) Delete unnecessary block

(d) Define association between block and geometry (f) Mesh generation

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Step 1: Create the blocks (a) At Blocking tab, choose Create block icon

the Create Block panel will show in the left (b) Choose BODY from the list
The Block will be created for the body we just created, the body comes from geometry creation procedure (fluid domain definition, page 28)

(c) Choose initialize block icon (d) Choose type to be 2D planar (e) Apply to finish, dismiss to quit This step will automatically create the block according to the dimension of the created geometry

Created block( the white lines indicate the existence of block)

output showed in the information window

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Step 2: split block (a) Select Split block from Blocking Tab (b) Choose split blocks icon (c) All visible to be turned on (d) Click selecting lines icon (e) In the main window, left click the top line in the middle position, a line will be created.
Click position

(f) Choose the new created line by left mouse button and keep holding to move the line to the step corner (g) Click middle mouse button to accept the creation (h) If you want to cancel the creation just right click

(I) Left click the left line in the middle position, move the created line to the step corner

Click position

(J) Click OK to finish

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Step 3: deleted unnecessary block in the left corner (a) In the Blocking tab choose delete block

(b) Click selecting blocks icon (c) In the main window choose the left lower corner by left click, the block will be highlighted.

This one

(d) Middle button to accept, then the block will be deleted

Now only three blocks are left, which are the same locations as the step boundaries

Block 1

Block 2 Block 3

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Step 4: associate the created block with geometry, a one to one map for the edges in block and curves in the geometry. Note: block, edge are logical structure, point, curve, surface, volume are physical structure of the model. This step also tells comupter the model region boundary. (a) Choose associate icon (b) Choose associate edge to curve
Edge: from block; curve: from GEOM part

(c) Click select edge icon (d) In the main window to select one line, middle button to finish the selection The name for the selected edge (e) Click select curve icon (f) In the main window, select one curve (when selected, the line will be highlighted), the same location as in step d, middle button to finish the selection
Note: In step f, when click middle button, ICEM may automatically create the association without clicking Apply

Curve 5 Edge 7 Edge 1 Curve 1 Curve 4 Edge 2 Curve 2 Edge 3 Curve 3 Edge 4 Edge 6 Edge 5

Therefore the associates are (1) Edge1 Curve 1 (2) Edge2 Curve 2 (3) Edge3 Curve 3 (4) Edge4 Curve 4 (5) Edge5 Curve 4 (6) Edge6 Curve 5 (7) Edge7 Curve 5

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The associations may be verified by selecting Edges >Show Association in the Display tree. As shown, the green arrows in the display point from an edge to its associated curve. Nodes and vertices of these edges will project on to the associated geometry.

Display Tree, in the left side Right click In our example, because the edges are the same locations as the curves, so the arrows can not be seen.

Step 5: applying mesh parameters (a) In the blocking tab choose pre-mesh params setup

(b)Choose meshing parameters (c) Choose select edge icon (d) In the main window choose the left edge for inlet, middle mouse button to accept, the name in ICEM will be displayed (e) In the number of nodes, input 20 (f) Spacing 1 and 2 are the minimum space for each node from the starting point to the ending point respectively (g) Ratio 1 and 2 are corresponding ratio of distance between the nodes for both ends for nin-uniform mesh distribution (h) Click apply to accept the change and back to (c) to choose another edge.

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Node numbers for all curves

100 20 20 20 80 40

Step 6: Initial Mesh Generation (a)In the structure tree, open blocking part (b) Tick pre-mesh box, (c) A pop-out window shows in the main working space and choose yes to re-compute pre-mesh.

Note: if the pre-mesh box was on, click it to turn it off and turn it on again to re-calculate the mesh.

Pre-mesh will be displayed as this

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Step 7: Saving the Mesh and Blocking (a) Save the mesh in unstructured format: Right mouse select Pre-Mesh and select Convert to Unstruct Mesh to generate the domain file. Now you have meshes created from premesh. If you turn off Pre-Mesh in Blocking, you will still see meshes in the model which contains shells and lines. If you are not happy about the mesh, you can always delete them by File > Mesh > Close Mesh. It will delete all meshes in the project, but Pre-Mesh are still there since they are not real mesh yet.

Check the line element to see the walls.

In a 2D problem, line element acting as surface element in 3D to enclose the physical domain. Therefore, any broken parts of line element will cause problem in CFD calculation. (a) In the structure tree window: (1) turn off geometry (2) in mesh, turn off shells and click open lines (3) in blocking, turn off every thing except subsets (4) in parts, turn on everything. you should see a clear boundary of the model where the walls were defined (including inlet and outlet boundaries) If you turn off lines in blocking, the model should disappear. (b) If you find gaps in the model wall when line is on, you should either go back to the stage of block definition and start again, or go to Edit Mesh on

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Edit mesh (need advanced reading, optional)

Edit mesh gives you many options to repair your mesh, but further readings are needed for the option. You can generate line meshes under create element

In the create element you can create some line meshes in the broken gapes shown in the previous model. (Help file will give your more details).

Save the project (for restart next time)

(a) If the line element checking is satisfied, you can save the project. (b) Select File > Save Project As and type in a project name. All files: tetin (geometry file), blocking and unstructured mesh will be saved. (c) You can load project file for continuation or just geometry file. It is better to save the project frequently.

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Step 8: Export mesh (a) From Output tab choose select solver

(b) From the list select Fluent_V6 for Output Solver

Leave this

(c) Click OK to finish setting

Step 9: Save the project and export the mesh (a) In the Output tab, select

(b) A dialog will prompt out, select Yes for saving

(c) Then a file open dialog will ask you to select the mesh file(*.uns), which is the same name as your project name. Usually the name provided by this dialog is the right one, click OK to open

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(d) Turn on 2D The example is a 2D problem, leave others to be default (e) You can change the Output file name by replacing fluent (f) Click Done

(g) Go to the working directory, find the mesh file: fluent.msh or (yourname).msh

(h) Save the mesh file for next lab session

Summary
Basic Elements for CFD with ICEM: Fluid domain geometry definition Define parts including boundaries, walls and all parts that you may need to be separated from the general geometry so that can be used in CFD boundary condition and post processing Mesh generation (including mesh checking) Mesh Export

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