Lecture 03

Introduction to ANSYS Meshing

14. 5 Release

Introduction to ANSYS
CFD Professional
2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

Release 14.5

Preprocessing Workflow
Geometry Creation
OR
Geometry Import

Sketches and
Planes

Geometry
Operations

Geometry Import
Options

Solver

Meshing
Methods

3D Operations

Hybrid Mesh: Tet,

Prisms, Pyramids

Boolean, Body
Operations, Split,
etc

3D Operations
Extrude, Revolve,
Sweep, etc

Meshing

Hexa Dominant,
Sweep meshing

Geometry
Cleanup and
Repair

Direct CAD/BiDirectional CAD

Assembly
Meshing

Automatic
Cleanup

Global Mesh
Settings

Merge, Connect,
Projection, Flow
Volume
Extraction, etc

Local Mesh
Settings
Sizing,
Body/Sphere of
Influence, Match
Control, etc

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

Release 14.5

What is ANSYS Meshing?

ANSYS Meshing is a component of ANSYS Workbench

Next generation meshing platform

Combines and builds on strengths of preprocessing offerings from
ANSYS: ICEM CFD, TGRID, CFX-Mesh, Gambit

Creates Meshes for different Physics and Solvers

CFD: Fluent, CFX and POLYFLOW

Mechanical: Explicit dynamics, Implicit
Electromagnetic
Integrates directly with other WB systems

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

Release 14.5

Meshing Process in ANSYS Meshing

Adjust settings if necessary

Physics, Sizing, Inflation, Pinch, etc.

Sizing, Refine, Pinch, Inflation, etc

Preview Surface Mesh, Inflation

Mesh Metrics, Charts

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

Release 14.5

ANSYS Meshing Graphics User Interface

Toolbars

Graphics
Window

Outline

Mesh
Metrics

Details
View
Worksheet

Selection
Information
Section Planes

Status/Info
Bar
2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

Message Window

Entity Details Bar

Units Bar

Release 14.5

Geometry Requirements
The geometry must comprise 3D solid
bodies
Surface bodies can be included to
represent thin walls, provided that they
are contained in the same part as the
surrounding solid body (possible in
DesignModeler)
Otherwise additional steps must be
taken in the CAD tool to convert surface
bodies to 3D solids

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

Release 14.5

Geometry Requirements
For CFD analyses, the geometry must represent the fluid region(s)
It might be necessary to extract the fluid volume(s) from the original CAD
If heat transfer through the solid components is important, then those
bodies are retained and meshed too
Circuit board
model

Body enclosing
PCB created

External fluid
region

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

Cutaway view of
fluid region
December 12, 2013

Release 14.5

Geometry Requirements
CAD for engine block

Body created to fill void

Internal fluid region

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

Release 14.5

Meshing for 3D Geometry

Two Meshing Approaches

Part/Body based

Meshing occurs at part or body level.

Meshing Methods are scoped to individual bodies.
Method assignment can be automatic or manual. Bodies contained in one
part are conformally meshed.
Assembly Meshing
Meshes an entire model (assembly of parts) in one process.
Capable of performing boolean operations including volume filling,
intersection & combination.
Conformal mesh created across parts.

Part/Body Meshing & Assembly Meshing not interoperable.

This course covers Part/Body based meshing

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

Release 14.5

Meshing Methods for 3D Geometry Examples

Sweep
Meshing

Tetrahedral
Mesh

Automatic
(Tetrahedral &
Sweep)

Multizone
Meshing

Methods covered in this course

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

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Release 14.5

Mesh Generation
How to Generate a Mesh

Right click Mesh in the tree for context

menu
Generate Mesh
Generates entire volume mesh on all
bodies
Right click on individual bodies to
generate mesh on selected body
Preview
Generates surface or inflation mesh only
Allows surface or inflation mesh quality
to be checked before volume meshing
Not available when using Patch
Independent Tetrahedron, MultiZone.

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

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Release 14.5

Parameterization in ANSYS Meshing

Parameterized Meshing controls

Global controls and local controls

Selection of parameter promotes the

parameter to the WB project page

Geometry and Meshing parameters can be
related using expressions in the parameter
manager
Example Parameterized edge sizing

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

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Parameterization Example
In this example the parameterised edge sizing is expressed as a function of the
length parameter (from CAD package). Expressions created in Workbench.
Length = 1m Divisions = 10

Length = 1.5m Divisions = 15

Number of Divisions = 10 x Length

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

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Release 14.5

Named Selections
Used to assign a name to one or more

selected entities
Easy to reselect groups that will be
referenced often
Automatically transferred to CFX-Pre
Named Selections can be applied to the
entities of the same size, type or
location, by using selection options
A worksheet enables selection criteria
to be modified

2013 ANSYS, Inc.

December 12, 2013

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