ANSYS 14.

0 Geometry
and Meshing Update

Dr Mike Marchant
Sub-Program Director - Fluids
1 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,
2011
 Outline

Based on the Workbench Platform, advances in:

• ANSYS 14.0 Geometry
• ANSYS 14.0 Meshing
Assembly Meshing - In Depth Review

2 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 ANSYS 14.0 Geometry
Advances

3 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 ANSYS 14.0 Geometry Advances

Focus on enhancing your productivity through new

features, increased flexibility, efficiency and usability
• ANSYS DesignModeler
– Core modeling improvements
– Application-specific modeling
• ANSYS SpaceClaim Direct Modeler
– Improved Workbench integration
– Enhanced Model Preparation
• Interoperability
– Support for new CAD releases
– New CAD file readers

4 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Mid Surfacing Improvements
• Selection tolerance
– Tolerance is used to detect face pairs in
case of imperfect offsets
– Selecting an undetected pair manually
provides feedback on tolerance value
required, which can be used for
automated selection
– Default value is set to zero
Selection tolerance value
• Trimming and other cleanup is suggested to user
improvements

Without selection
All the pairs detected
tolerance
successfully with Selection
5 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,
2011 tolerance
 Rotor Shaft Feature

• A new option to import and

create Shaft geometry
• Reads input from a text file and
automatically creates line
bodies with specified cross-
sections Line bodies for rotor
shafts
Cross sections are
assigned automatically

Input data in a text file

6 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Electronics Tool Improvements
• Support for additional object types
Additional object types and
– Axis aligned annular cylinder extrusion method for more
– Axis aligned conical frustum realistic simplification of
– Axis aligned annular conical frustum complex models
• Support for Polygonal extrusion

7 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Improved Interoperability with Ansoft
Products

• Bi-directional geometry transfer

between Ansoft products and
Workbench applications for multi-
physics simulations
(DesignModeler/Mechanical/Meshing)

8 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Improved Named Selection Transfer and Error
Handling
Improved Named Selection transfer between ANSYS DesignModeler and other
ANSYS Workbench applications
Improved Error handling
• Attach failures
• Share topology failures

Improved error handling to

A new export property inside provide appropriate error and
DesignModeler to control warnings in case of failures
named selection transfer to
other workbench applications
9 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,
2011
 CAD Interoperability Options

Geometry Interfaces at R14.0

Associative Interfaces (Associative, CAD Readers
bidirectional and parametric) • AutoCAD 2012*
• Creo Parametric • Creo Elements/Pro
• Creo Elements/Pro • NX 7.5
• Creo Elements/Direct Modeling • Inventor 2011
• NX 8.0 • SolidWorks 2011
• Inventor 2012 • Catia V5 R20
• SolidWorks 2011 • Catia V4
• Solid Edge ST3 (103) • IGES and STEP
• Solid Edge ST4 • Parasolid 24.0
• CATIA V5 R21 • ACIS R20
• Teamcenter 8.0. 8.1, 8.3 • GAMBIT 2.4
10 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14, * Requires an AutoCAD installation
2011
 ANSYS SpaceClaim: Improved Integration

Improved ANSYS Workbench Integration

• Improved Associativity and data transfer
• Support for multiple design points

Preview options for Topology Sharing

• Preview sharing to view topology sharing
before transferring the model into Workbench
• Help detect and fix topology sharing issues
before transfer

11 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 ANSYS SpaceClaim: Volume Extract Tool
Improvements
• Progress reporting
• Options to specify multiple faces as seeds
to create more than one volume in a
single step
• Option to preview face selection
propagation to detect leaks during
volume extraction

12 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 ANSYS SpaceClaim: Improved Selection and Repair

Improved Selection and Repair Options

• More Selection Options
• Select Parents
• Select Children
• ClipView option to isolate and
examine selected region
• Multi-face patch option for fixing
missing faces

Without multi-face With multi-face

ClipView patch on patch on
13 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,
2011
 ANSYS 14.0 Meshing
Advances

14 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Rapid & Robust Meshing

Top on the list of challenges

engineering companies are facing is
shortened product development
schedules while at the same time the
product designs themselves are
becoming increasingly complex.

Meshing of these designs introduce

challenges in terms of speed,
robustness and accuracy.

Courtesy Siemens AG.

15 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 ANSYS 14.0 Meshing Advances

Enhanced productivity through increased automation,

flexibility, efficiency and robustness

• Performance (Speed, Robustness)

• Selective Meshing
• Virtual Topologies
• Shell Meshing
• Hex Meshing
• ICEM CFD/Tgrid
• Assembly Meshing (Tet and CutCell)

16 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Performance

Prism (inflation) layers

• Speed (~2x faster)
• Robustness
• Element/cell quality
Tet with inflation

CutCell CutCell with inflation

• Robustness
• Cell quality

17 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Selective Control

Persistence
• Record and replay sequence
of meshing steps
Flexibility
• Adv. Front surface meshing
• Separate min size
for curvature & proximity
Convenience
• Contact transfers to
FLUENT

18 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Virtual Topologies

Virtual Topologies (VT) enabling

improved automation, flexibility,
and usability: Cluster 2

• More interactive usage through direct Cluster 1

graphics interaction rather than tree

objects
2 Virtual Faces created.
• Ability to run “Auto VT” on selected 1 for each cluster.

edges, faces or bodies

• Clustering of faces/edges
• Create hard vertex
• Face splits
• Improved meshing performance
w/VTs

19 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Virtual Topologies

20 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Shell Meshing Improvements

Better quad smoothing:

• Improved laplacian smoothing
• More ruled mesh on rectangles, etc.

13.0 Default quad/tri

14.0 Default quad/tri

Example has ribs attached that

are hidden

21 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Hex Meshing

MultiZone improvements
• Imprinting
– Through bodies
– Through long stretches of connected
side faces
• Support for Match control
• Robustness
• Speed

Speed improvements for multi-body

parts with swept blocks

22 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 ICEM CFD
Productivity enhancements through increased
robustness, flexibility, and efficiency

• Stability and usability

– ~160 defects and feature requests resolved
• User interface
– Speed (display, selection)
– Model tree
• Tetra/Prism
– Prism editing
– Upgraded TGrid implementation
• Hexa
– Options, usability, smoothing
– MultiZone

23 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 TGrid

Productivity enhancements through increased

robustness, flexibility, and efficiency

• Assembly Meshing
• CutCell-to-Tet conversion with remeshing
• Prism speedup (~2x)

24 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Assembly Meshing

A New Approach to
Meshing
25 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,
2011
 Assembly Meshing

Assembly Meshing enables dramatically

reduced time to mesh for typical CAD
models by eliminating the tedious
geometry clean-up

Top-down approach to mesh all parts at

once
• Uses Virtual Bodies (material points) to
automatically extract internal regions
from assemblies
• Supports:
– Meshing solids from sheet bodies
forming a “closed” domain
– Conformal mesh between parts
without requiring multibody parts
– Overlapping bodies
– Tet (linear) and CutCell (hex-dominant)
mesh types
– Program Controlled Inflation

26 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Assembly Meshing
Review
1. The Customer Problem
2. Assembly meshing overview
3. New Features
1. Flow Volume Extraction
2. Sharp Angle, Thin Sections
3. Contacts and Leak closing
4. Demo: Mixing Tank
5. Miscellaneous features
6. Summary

27 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Assembly Meshing

The Customer Problem

28 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Assembly Meshing Motivation
CFD users need a quick way to generate the fluid volume mesh from complex
assemblies of geometric solid parts.
Geometry tolerances often require more accurate resolution of data (and more
work to achieve it) that the mesh later ignores as the mesh size is relatively much
larger.
• The parts may not be in contact with each other, and they may contain sharp
angles, thin sections and gaps.
• Poor CAD models that don’t form watertight solid geometry.
By combining the flow volume extraction and meshing operations, the overall
meshing time and efficiency of the meshing workflow can be improved.
Solution:
• Assembly meshing

29 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Assembly Meshing in Fluids:
Process Compression
Geometry Prep Mesh Setup Mesh Generation

The overall meshing process can often get elongated if the geometry is complex:

High Complexity
Model Complexity

Geometry Mesh Mesh

Prep Setup Generation

Med Complexity
Geometry Mesh Mesh
Prep Setup Generation

Low Complexity
Geometry Mesh Mesh
Prep Setup Generation

Time to Mesh
30 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,
2011
 Assembly Meshing:
Process Compression
Assembly meshing reduces the overall meshing time, by
combining the flow volume extraction and meshing
operations.

Part Meshing:
Model Complexity

Geometry Mesh Mesh

Prep Setup Generation

Assembly Meshing:
Geometry Mesh Mesh Note: Mesh Generation time
Prep Setup Generation
is slightly longer, but overall
time is significantly reduced.

Time to Mesh
31 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,
2011
 Assembly Meshing

Flow Volume, Inflation, Sharp Angle, Thin Sections

32 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing: Characteristics
• Maintains characteristics from CutCell at R13
– High fraction of hex and prismatic cells
– Supports global size functions, feature capture, tessellation, etc. controls
– Operates on parts, multi-body parts, etc. with new option to define virtual bodies
– Patch independent:
• Eliminates the need for pinch control and VT operations
• Creates conformal meshes across parts in contact
– Eliminates the need for multi-body part generation in CAD
• Ability to create flow volumes from
a “closed” set of bodies (sheet or solid)
– Eliminates the need for Boolean/Fill operations in CAD
• Supports both CutCell and Tetrahedral meshes

33 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing:
Flow Volume Extraction
Flow volume extraction: Three simple steps
1. Define Coordinate system inside the Fluid Void
2. Insert a Virtual body
3. Assign the proper Coordinate
System to the Material Point
4. Done

#2

#3

#1

34 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing:
Keep Solid Mesh
In the Assembly Meshing panel, you can choose to
keep or discard the mesh in all solids

Parts can be marked

as Fluids/Solids

35 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Inflation Improvements
Speed and Flexibility of inflation: Industrial Example:
• 68 Million cells, 5 inflation layers
• Several improvements to both • Total Mesh Time:
assembly and part meshing •R13: 6 hrs 39 mins
– Better quality during stair stepping •R14: 3 hrs 38 mins

– Better handling of high aspect ratio inflation

– Improved Speed of inflation creation ~30-100%

36 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing:
Automatic Inflation
Also supported for Virtual Bodies
• Program controlled inflation acts only on Fluid Bodies

CutCell + Inflation Tetrahedron + Inflation

37 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing:
Sharp angle tool
• A special cell cutting algorithm has been developed to
properly capture sharp 3D angles
• Can be used to improve feature capturing in general
• Insert a “Sharp Angle” and pick adjacent faces
• Example: Mesh without Sharp Angle

Sharp angles in the Flow volume of drill bit

Mesh with Sharp Angle

38 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing Leak Handling:
Leakage Path
Find leaks using material points:
• Any time you are using material points (for internal flow), and it is
leaking to the outside, you can automatically see the
leak-path together with the surface mesh
There is a small gap between the valve plug and the valve seat

39 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing Leak Handling:
Contact (Interface) Regions
Using Contacts for Assembly meshing:
• Workbench has extensive capabilities to detect contact
(interfaces) between parts.
• Until now, that contact information has been of little use to
FLUENT users, but that is changing at R14.
• Contacts have several purposes for
Assembly Meshing:
– Closing of small gaps using contact sizing
– Find thin sections
– Find Contacts For example, in this image
• Features at contact pairs are preserved the circled edges would be
removed without contact
• Contacts are also used in Fluid Surface defined since the feature
picker helper angle is below the default
(40 degrees)

40 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing Leak Handling:
Closing Leaks
Pick the face of the valve plug (blue)
and the edge of the valve seat (red)
Closing a leak: Three simple steps
1. Define a Contact between
the entities that are leaking
– Edge/face or Face/Face
#1
2. Drag and drop the contact
on top of the Mesh Icon
– Creates a Contact sizing
3. Adjust Contact sizing
– Use roughly 1/5 of min-size
4. Assembly Meshing
#2

#3

41 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing:
Finding Thin Sections

Why locate thin sections (3D bodies)?

• The assembly meshing method produces better quality
meshes if thin baffles and fins are well resolved
• By using the Find Thin Sections tool, these can be found
in advance and appropriate sizing can be applied

42 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Assembly Meshing

Mixing Tank Demo

43 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 R14 Assembly Meshing - Demo

44 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 Summary: Assembly Meshing Advantages

• Improved turnaround time

– Fewer manual steps
– Fewer geometry cleanup operations
– Avoids fluid extraction and other
Boolean operations
• Cell count reduction of 50%
– CutCell vs. Patch Conforming tet
• High fraction of Hex cells
• Can find and close gaps in the model

45 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011
 SUMMARY

Geometry Advances:
• Usability
• Analysis specific custom tools
• Interoperability

Meshing Advances:
• Automatic and Robust Meshing
• Shell Meshing
• Hex Meshing
• ICEM CFD and TGrid

46 © 2011 ANSYS, Inc. November 14,

2011