How to create mesh using ICEM CFD By:
Zamri Abdullah (
[email protected])
1.
In the Design Modeler, click on the ‘Project’ tab. Go to the ‘Proceed Advanced Meshing’
2.
Then a new window will appear for the ICEM CFD
3.
Look at the top left window; make sure you click the curves and surfaces boxes. And see the effect on the geometry in the main window
4.
Now you need to name your ‘inlet’ ‘outlet’ and ‘wall’ of the geometry. To do this, right click the ‘Parts’ box in the left window, and a sub menu will pop up.
5.
Click on the ‘Create Part’ and a window on the bottom left will appear. Type any name on the ‘Part’ box. E.g. IN..
6.
Then click the ‘yellow arrow’ button. Then a menu will pop up like this. Make sure you click the buttons in the red box below.
7.
Then select the part indicated ‘IN’ in your geometry which includes all curves and surfaces for that part. Left click to select, middle click to finish.
Left click to select
8. 9.
Right click to confirm. Then the selected part will change in colour.
Do the same thing to all parts – OUT and WALL. Then you can check whether your selected part that has been names is correct or not by unchecking the boxes in the top left window for the ‘IN’, ‘OUT’ and ‘WALL’. If there is some part of the geometry still exist when you check the ‘SOLID_1_1’ box (it may be different name if you use other machines), then you might want to redo the step above. Once completed, make sure when you uncheck all boxes except for ‘SOLID_1_1’, there is nothing left in the main window that shows the geometry (in other words, the window should be empty).
10. Then, delete the ‘SOLID_1_1’ box by right click delete.
11. Now your system is ready to be meshed. First you must create a ‘BODY’ for the system. Go to the tabs on the upper side of the window, and click the Geometry Create Body. (The fourth button on the ‘geometry’ tab)
12. Then a menu will appear like this. Click the ‘Centroid of 2 Points’, and the ‘yellow arrow.
13. A menu will pop up in the main window. Select any two point on the geometry, preferably the far top left and the far bottom right.
14. Then ‘middle click’ the mouse to confirm. And you can see the word ‘Body’ will appear on the geometry.
15. Now go to ‘Blocking’ ‘Create Block’.
16. Upon clicking the create block, a menu will appear in the bottom left like this. Click on the select geometry, the click OK
17. Then you can see a ‘block’ is created on your geometry. Curves
Edges 18. Now you need to associate the ‘edges’ of the block to the ‘curves’ of the geometry. To do this, go to the Blocking Associate
19. A menu will appear. Click on the ‘Associate edge to Curve’.
20. Then click the ‘Edge(s)’ button – by which, in this case the all the line on one side of the bounding box. When you click it, it will turn into other colour (red). Then middle click to confirm. Then you can look at both the edges and the details in the dialog box after you finish.
21. Do the same procedure for curves.
22. Do the same thing for the other end of the box. 23. Once you finish, click the ‘Update Association’ button and ‘apply’
24. Then click on the ‘Snap Project vertices’ ‘All Visible’ OK. And you see the effect on the geometry. The box is now moved inside the geometry.
25. Now the box (or now called, block) will serve as the basis of your meshing. 26. To get a better mesh, you need to construct an ‘O-grid’. To do this, go to ‘Blocking’ Split Block. Then a menu will appear on the bottom left.
27. Click the ‘O-grid Block’. Click on the ‘Select Block’ and ‘Select Faces’ to select the respective blocks and faces with respect to the O-grid.
For the ‘block’, once you click the ‘Select Block’ +, then click to any point inside the geometry, and middle click to confirm. A green block will then appear.
For the ‘face’, click two faces on the ‘inlet’ and ‘outlet’ of the geometry. Middle click to confirm. Then blue boxes will appear respectively.
28. Set your ‘Offset’ value. Offset vale is how far will the edge of the original block will be located from the side to create a new ‘O-grid’ block. You can try any value and see the difference in your geometry. Then click OK to finish.
29. Now you need to create your mesh parameters. Go to ‘Mesh’ ‘Part Mesh Setup’
30. A menu box will appear for you to fill in the values for the parameter. You can set any values that you require and see the difference. For start, let’s put the values ‘1’ in the boxes as shown below and remain the other values unchanged. Click Apply Dismiss.
31. Then Go to ‘Blocking’ ‘Pre-Mesh Params’ ‘Update Sizes’ ‘Update All’ OK
32. To generate mesh, click on the ‘Pre-Mesh’ box in the top left window, and a menu will pop up. Then click ‘Yes’ on the pop-up menu.
33. And you can see the mesh is now being created.
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34. You can check the no. of nodes, and other parameters at the dialog box under the geometry.
35. Now save your project in the ‘Save Project’. Also it’s important to know that you can always save the blocking, the meshing and all other steps that you’ve done in the previous steps separately in the ‘File’ drop down menu. 36. You can also save your geometry, the blocking and meshing as you wish as well.
37. Now, in order to make the mesh that you’ve just created usable, you need to convert it to what ICEM called ‘unstructed mesh’. Go to the ‘Pre –Mesh’ box again, right click and click on the ‘Convert to Unstruc mesh’.
38. Next is save the mesh in ‘*.cfx5’ file. Go to ‘Output’ ‘Select Solver’. Make sure you select ‘ANSYS CFX’ in the ‘Output Solver’ box and ‘ANSYS’ in the Common Structural Solver box. Then click OK.
39. Then on the same ‘output’ tab, click on the ‘Write Input’ button. Then a ‘Save As…’ box will appear. Name it as you wish. Click OK.
40. Make sure that you have the *.cfx5 file in your folder for the project that you’ve just created.
