Lecture 7

Output to Solver
14.5 Release

Introduction to ANSYS
ICEM CFD
© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 1 Release 14.5
 Output to Solver - Selecting Solver
• Selecting solver
– Use the red toolbox in the Output tab to select the solver format
– This same menu is accessed with Settings > Solver
– 123 solver formats available
– All output formats can be set with the Output Solver pulldown
– Help on each solver format can be found on the Ansys website:
http://www.ansys.com/Products/Other+Products/ANSYS+ICEM+CFD/
Output+Interfaces/Output+Interfaces+TOC
– Also found in Help > ABAQUS ACE-U AcFlux ACRi ACUSOLVE VULCAN SCRYU

Output Interfaces ADINA AIRFLO3D ALPHA-FLOW ANSYS ATTILA WIND STARCD

AUTOCFD BAGGER CEDRE CFD-ACE CFDesign WINDMASTER TDF
CFD++ CFL3D CFX-4 CFX-5 CFX-TASCflow ZEN SC/Tetra
CGNS CHAD C-MOLD COBALT COMCO USM3D STARS
CONCERT3D CRSOL CRUNCH CSP DATEX USMKV3V TGRID
DSMC-SANDIA DTF EM EXODUS FANSC VECTIS SpecElem
FASTEST-3D FASTU FENFLOSS FIDAP FIRE VRML STL
FLEX FLOTRAN FLOWCART FLOW-LOGIC FLUENT V4 VSAERO/USAERO TLNS3Dmb
FLUENT V6 GASP GLS3D(ADH) GMTEC GSMAC-DF Trio_U SPECTRUM-CENTRIC
GUST HAWK HDF IBM-BEM ICAT TSAR TEAM
ICU IDEAS IMPNS INCA iPLES UGRID TRANAIR
KIVA-3 KIVA-4 LAURA LL-DYNA3D LS-DYNA3D UH3D POLY3D
MACS MAGREC MAZe MOUSE MULTIBLOCK USA POPINDA
N3SNATUR NASTRAN NEKTON NOPO NPARC SAUNA PRECISE
NSU3D NS3D NUMECA PAB3D PARC SPLITFLOW RADIOSS
PATRAN PHOENICS PLOT3D PMARC POLYFLOW TNO RTT

© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 2 Release 14.5

 Mesh Formats
• There are 2 types of mesh formats that solvers read
– Unstructured
• Most solvers use unstructured formats
• Some examples are Fluent, Ansys CFX, CFD++, Abaqus,
Ansys
• Nodes have an ID and location
• The ICEM CFD unstructured mesh has a *.uns extension and
can be made from any mesher in ICEM CFD
– Multiblock structured
• Some older CFD solvers require this format
• Examples are Plot3D, CFX-TASCFLOW, KIVA-3V
j
i k – CGNS supports both unstructured and multiblock
structured
• Nodes have IJK index designation and location
• The ICEM CFD structured mesh has many files:
– Project.1, project.2, project.3, etc… for each mesh
domain
– A topology file, topo_mulcad_out.top, that describes how
each domain is connected to the other domain.
– A dummy file, Project.multiblock, that enables selection
of all the multiblock mesh files of that project name by
selecting this one file
• Only an ICEM CFD hexa blocking is capable of being written
out in multiblock structured format
© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 3 Release 14.5
 Boundary Conditions
• Both CFD and FEA solvers allow boundary
conditions to be set
– Output > Boundary Conditions
• BC’s are set on mesh elements grouped by
part names
• Tree structure organizes part names by
Part highlights white dimension (2D, 3D, etc) of geometry and mesh
when selected in the part
• Any part containing mixed dimensions (ex.
BC’s shown for solver Fluent_V6 curves and tri’s) will be grouped into
mixed/unknown
• Use File> Attributes > Save Attributes As… to
save the BC file (*.fbc and *.atr extensions)

© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 4 Release 14.5

 Parameters
• Some structural solvers have global parameters
– Output > Edit Parameters
• If the solver type requires global parameters, you must
bring up this menu before writing out and press
Accept, even if not changing any parameters
• Then use File > Parameters > Save Parameters As… to
save the file (*.par extension)

Example parameters
shown for ANSYS solver
© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 5 Release 14.5
 Write Input

• Output > Write Input to write the solver file

– It will ask you to save a boundary condition file
(*.fbc) and the project
– It’s always safe to save these when asked, but
not necessary if you know you saved them and
didn’t make any changes since then
– It will then ask for the ICEM CFD mesh file to
translate
• *.uns file if the solver requires an
unstructured mesh
• *.multiblock file if the solver requires a
structured mesh
– A final menu will pop up that has specific
options for the solver translation being used
• The example on the left is for Fluent_V6
– All translators will require a boundary condition
file even if no BC’s are set
• A empty BC file will contain just the part
names
– There will always be a name for the output file
© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 6 Release 14.5
 Special Structural Solvers
• 5 Special structural solvers
– There are 5 structural solvers that have extended boundary
condition setup – called loads and constraints – which are set
using the Common Structural Solver dropdown
– These are Nastran, Ansys, LS-Dyna, Abaqus, and Autodyn
– These are set using the 4 extra tabs; Properties, Contraints, Loads,
and Solve Options

Nastran Ansys and Abaqus

LS-Dyna and Autodyn

• Constraints tab
– All functions are only available for LS-Dyna and
Autodyn
– “Define contact” is allowable with Ansys and
Abaqus
– Nastran only allows the first two functions

© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 7 Release 14.5

 Special Structural Solvers - Procedure
• Define which elements to write out
– First define a material in the
Properties tab
– Then define an element property on
the element types and parts you
want to write out
• 3D property for volume
elements
• 2D property on shells
• 1D property on line elements
• 0D property on node elements
• Define any Loads and Constraints
in the other tabs (optional)
• Use the Solve Options tab to write
the mesh to the solver
– Solve Options > Write/View Input
File
• Can submit solver run if the
corresponding environment variable is
set to find the solver executable
– For Ansys, it is ANSYS_EXEC_PATH

© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 8 Release 14.5

 Special Structural Solvers – Write Input

• If using the Properties, Loads, and

Constraints tabs for one of the 5 special
structural solvers, then use the Solve
Options tab to write the file, not the Output
tab
– The attribute file (*.atr) is the BC file used
with these special structural solvers
– The attribute file is replaced with the
boundary condition file (*.fbc) when using
the Output tab
– Any elements set to All or None will
override any properties set in the Properties
tab if not set to Defined
– To communicate with the Output tab, click
on Advanced, and then click Create
Attribute & Parameter Files
• You can then Edit Parameters and Edit
Attributes here or in the Output tab
• The attributes will then be the same as
the boundary conditons
– View input file here or in your own text
editor
© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 9 Release 14.5
 Wing Edit Workshop

Workshop 7.1
Mesh Repair and Export
• Read geometry and create mesh
• Check mesh quality
• Identify areas of poor mesh
• Repair mesh
• Write out mesh to CFD Solver

© 2012 ANSYS, Inc. April 1, 2013 10 Release 14.5