Workshop 04

18.2 Release

Surface Mesh Preparation

ASMO

Introduction to
ANSYS Fluent Meshing

1 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. 1/23/21

 Introduction
• Workshop Description:
• This workshop shows some of the clean up tools in Fluent Meshing for boundary
meshes.
• Learning Aims:
• You are going to use the tools to clean up the given surface mesh and generate a
volume mesh.
• This workshop will cover how to
– Create and display groups
– Visualize problem areas
– Use global and local tools for cleaning up the mesh
– Check quality of mesh
– Improve quality using global and local tools
– Use the new Fluent Meshing Icons.
– Use Troubleshooting techniques
– Generate mesh and improving its quality
– Set zones and boundary conditions

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 Starting ANSYS Fluent in Meshing Mode
– Open the Fluent Launcher by clicking the Windows Start menu, then selecting
Fluent 18.2 in the Fluid Dynamics sub-menu of the ANSYS 18.2 program group
– Enable Meshing Mode under Options
– Select Serial for Processing Options
– Set Working Directory
• area where files are
– Click OK to start Fluent in meshing mode.

Note:
The workshop geometry is a simple half-car geometry
in a wind tunnel.
For this workshop, We read the surface mesh, identify
and fix issues with it, before proceeding to volume
mesh generation.

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 Read and display the mesh
File  Read  Mesh...

• Select the mesh file

• ASMO_NS-for-repair.msh.gz
– Press OK
– This is a Geometry object.
• Right-click on “asmo” object
– click Draw to display.
• Select Zone selection filter
– select outer walls of wind tunnel.
• Click on hide icon
– see details of the car.
• Right-click on “asmo” to get a Summary of
the imported geometry.
• Problems with surface mesh are highlighted
in the summary .

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 Visualization of Problem Areas

We now use visualization tools inside Fluent

Meshing to identify issues with the surface mesh.
• Enable Free and Multi under Display in the
Ribbon bar
The zones marked in blue are the free faces which
have to be fixed.

• You can disable “All Faces” from the

Display – ribbon bar to easily highlight
all the problem areas.

There are various global and local tools

inside Fluent Meshing which can be used
to fix such connectivity issues.

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 Merge Nodes
• Right-click on Asmo object, hover your mouse over
Diagnostics and click on Connectivity and Quality
to open Diagnostic tools.
This tool will help to identify the problematic areas
for the surface mesh and to fix most of it.
• In the Face Connectivity tab,
‫ ־‬Select all boundary zones
‫ ־‬Select Free as Issue and Merge Nodes as Operations
‫ ־‬Enable the option of Relative (Percent) Tolerance
‫ ־‬Retain the default value of 10%
‫ ־‬A local tolerance based on 0.1*edge length is used.
‫ ־‬Press Mark (3880 faces are marked)
‫ ־‬Click Apply for All.
• The message in console - (removed 1178 boundary
nodes and 0 faces).
• Click Draw in the dialog box to redisplay the free faces.
Note that number of free faces has significantly reduced.

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 Merge Nodes with Increased Tolerance

If you zoom in, note that some of the nodes with

bigger tolerance difference have not been merged.

They require more than 10 % tolerance to be

merged. Increase the tolerance in steps of 10 till
you reach 50 % and observe the change.
• Select all the Boundary Zones in the Diagnostics
Tools panel and increase Tolerance by 10.
• Repeat the procedure : Mark - Apply for All - Draw
‫ ־‬Redraw each time (for 30%, 40% and 50%) and see
the effect on the connectivity
Each step improves the connectivity of the mesh,
reducing the number of free faces.

• Enable All Faces Visibility.

‫ ־‬Hide the wind tunnel walls if needed. Write the mesh : File Write Mesh
ASMO_Nodes_merged.msh.gz
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 Stitch
Nodal mismatches can be too big for Node Merge to deal
with. You can instead Stitch the nodes for large tolerance
node merging.
We advise saving the mesh before this is used as it can
destroy geometry if used incorrectly.

Always Merge Nodes first.

• In Diagnostic Tools , ensure Free is active
• Change operation to Stitch
• Mark all free faces within tolerance (0.05)
‫ ־‬451 faces are marked
• Click First to go to the first set of the free faces about to be
stitched
• 2 choices
‫ ־‬Click Apply for current to stitch this first set (repeat the process)
‫ ־‬Click Apply for All to do it one step
 then hit Draw to see the effects.
• Observe that this fixes most of the free faces. Write the mesh : File Write Mesh
ASMO_Stitched.msh.gz
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 Fixing Final Free Faces
• Once done, press Mark again in the Diagnostic tools
‫ ־‬35 faces are still free
‫ ־‬We will now fix the remaining free face issues with local,
manual methods.
‫ ־‬Press first to highlight the first set of faces

• Activate Remesh in the Patch options of the ribbon bar.

‫ ־‬This will mesh the caps created while filling holes.
‫ ־‬The triangles have the same size than the neighbours and a
good quality

Note: Remember, middle mouse click centres the view on a point and then you can rotate or zoom
on that point easily. Up and down arrow keys can be used to increase the delta for bounds

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 Fixing Final Free Faces

‫ ־‬Clear face selection (F2) ,

‫ ־‬Select Edge selection filter(Ctrl-E),
‫ ־‬Select an edge on the open loop
‫ ־‬Click on the + (F5) to open Patch Option menu
‫ ־‬It fills the hole (generated triangles belong to the same surface zone)

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 Fixing Final Free Faces
• Click Next in the Diagnostic Tools panel.
• This will highlight the next set of free faces not fixed by
the stitch operation.
• Apply the procedure just described
– Clear the selection (F2)
– ….
• Use Next to repeat the above process for the next hole

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 Local Cleanup
• Local fixing of boundaries can be done.
• Click Next (Diagnostic Tools) to select the next cluster of free faces (see picture).
• This could be rectified by filling as before
• But the resulting triangle would be highly skewed.
• The next 2 slides show how to fix this issue using the icons.
• Note : the Boundary Modify panel can also be used to do these operations.

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 Local Clean Up Tools – Using Icons I
• At this stage as shown in the figure, there is no node pair to
merge.
‫ ־‬First clear all selections .
‫ ־‬Click on node Filter (Ctrl-N) , • Tip : Always click into the corner of the
‫ ־‬Select the two nodes in order as shown tri nearest the node/edge you wish to
select rather than trying to directly click
 Node 2 moves to node 1
the node/edge position itself.
‫ ־‬Then click the merge icon (F9)

Merge Nodes

2 1

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 Local Clean Up Tools – Using Icons II
• Click Next in Diagnostic tools to move on the next problem
‐ First clear all selections .
‐ Click on the Edge Filter icon (Ctrl-e) ,
‐ Select the edge
‐ Split the edge using (F7)
‐ Then switch to node Filter (Ctrl-n) ,
‐ Select the two nodes in order as shown
‐ merge using (F9) .

• You should be left with just one free face.

Edge Split Merge Nodes

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 Clean Up “Multi” Connected Faces
• If we click Next again for “Free” issue we find the issue
below which is both Free and Multi. But let’s look at the
Multi tool to see how it works

– Deactivate the Free Faces (under Display in the Ribbon Bar)

– Select Issue as Multi
– Retain all other values as default
– Click Mark
– By clicking on First,
• The first set of multi-connected
faces will be displayed

– Click Apply for Current

• This will delete one fringe face

– Click Summary now to see if any free/multi faces are

present.
• There should be none left.
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 Fixing Self-Intersections
– Change Issue to Self Intersections
– Click on Mark
– Click First
• to go to First set of faces

– Click Smooth All to smooth the spike penetrating the mesh

– Draw to view to smoothed faces

– Click Mark again to verify they are all fixed

– Click Summary to see what issues remain
• Note : self intersection checks are not included in Summary due to
expense of calculation for large models.
• We advise to check prior to volume meshing

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 Verify Connectivity
• Once connectivity issues have been verified, we can move on to worry about the
quality of the surface mesh
• Ensure that you have Bounds Reset so that you can see the whole geometry and
check one last time for Free and Multi faces visually (unselect all entities first )

• RMB on “asmo” object and click Draw

• Use (Ctrl+A) to auto-scale the view to the screen
• Fix any remaining issues if free or multi exist
• Previous steps may have not been followed correctly!
• The Diagnostic Summary should look like this with no free, multi or duplicate but
with some skewed faces to fix.
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 Fixing Poor Features
• Here we fix a kink on the roof
• Draw All Faces once again
• Zoom on the area highlighted
‐ Switch to Node Filter
‐ Select two nodes as shown below
‐ Set target edge based on 2 nodes (Ctrl-s)
‐ Select the node to project as shown
‐ Project (Ctrl-p)
‐ Will clear the target edge from display

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 Rezoning Triangles
• In Graphics window select the car-front boundary zone
(highlighted) and Isolate (Ctrl-Shift-i) it
• The feature edge is not smooth
– Some triangles should belong to car-main-body

– Clear selection using ,

– Switch to face Filter
– Activate Box under mousse probe function (Ribbon)
– Select the faces that need to be rezoned
• Draw a box using the RMB
– Now go back to earlier display of car
– Switch to Zone Filter
– Switch back to Select in Ribbon
– Select the car-main-body with
– Click on (Ctrl-o)
• to rezone the triangles into car-main-body
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 Improving Quality
• Switch to Quality Tab in the Diagnostic Tools panel
– Activate General Improve under Operations ,
– Change Min Skewness to 0.7
– Press Mark (skewed elements > 0.7)
• Retain default options
– Preserve Boundary is switched
– Click on First to visualize problem areas.

• After these faces are marked hit Apply for All

– This should reduce max skewness to 0.69.
Note: this operation can be done step by
step by hitting First then Next and resolve
issues manually. It shows all locations
where the Mesh needs improvement.
Useful when the number of issues are
small.

Improved mesh

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Click Draw
ANSYS, Inc. to see
1/23/21the improved mesh, then Summary
 Switch to Mesh Type
• Connectivity and quality of this Object manually
are now ensured
• Close the Diagnostics panel

• We can now convert the Geom type object to a

Mesh Object
• Select “asmo” Object using the RMB
• Select Convert to Mesh Object

• Click yes on the following dialogue box

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 Generate Tetrahedral Mesh
• The Tet mesh can now be generated
• Right-click on “asmo” and select Auto Mesh…
• Select the “asmo” under Object
• Keep all other by default
– No prisms
– Volume fill : Tet

• Click Mesh
– Once volume Tet mesh done the report generated in the
console shows there are some skewed Elements

– In the tree under “asmo” Mesh objects & Cell Zones

• See asmo-tet-cells shows that the volume is done

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Close the Auto1/23/21
ANSYS, Inc.
Mesh panel
 Generate Tetrahedral Mesh
• Ensure bounds are reset to view all model

• Open Display  Grid

• In the Cells tab select the “asmo” zone under Cell Zones
• Under Options disable everything other than Quality
• Set Minimum to 0.9 to view skewed cells over this value
• Click Display
– Bad cells located in 2 areas
– Junction Tyres - Road

• In the Faces tab

– Highlight the boundaries starting with “car-”
23 © 2017
– ANSYS, Inc. 1/23/21
Click Display
 View Cut Plane
To view a cut plane through the wheels
• Zoom on the tyres,
• Select position Filter (Ctrl-x),
• Right-click to select a position on the tyre

• Press Set Ranges

• Remove X & Z range (keep Y range)

• Then RMB on Cell Zones

– Select Draw All Cells in Range

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 Improve Quality
• To fix the skewed cells we can:
– Clear the mesh and repair the boundary again or
– Do local smoothing using the Auto Node Move tool
• This will move the local nodes to improve quality. Select
boundaries to allow movement but restricting movement along
the surfaces to avoid changes on the geometry
• Right click on Cell Zones under “asmo” Mesh objects
– Auto Node Move
– Select all the Boundary Zones.
– Retain the default settings except nbr of iterations  5
– Click Apply and Close the Auto Node Move panel.
• A message is printed in the console about improved quality.
• Skewness has reached an acceptable level

Dropping Dihedral Angle and deselection of

“restrict boundary nodes along surface” will allow
more aggressive improvements and better quality
but risks loss of features

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 Boundary Conditions
• Reset the Bounds
• RMB on “asmo-tet-cells” under “Cell Zones”
– Draw Boundaries
– Set zone filter
– select the inlet (wind tunnel inlet) in the graphics
– Press the pencil icon Change Zone Properties
– Activate “Set Boundary Type”
– Select velocity-inlet from the drop-down list.
– Click OK.

– Repeat this process for the other boundaries

• outlet zone to pressure-outlet type,
• symmetry zone to symmetry type
• RMB on “asmo-tet-cells” cell zone
– click Summary and Info to see more info on the
cells e.g. type, count and quality

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 Mesh Ready
• RMB on Model in the Tree and select Prepare
for Solve and answer Yes
– This removes un-needed geometry objects
and removes numbers from our face zone
names etc. before moving to the solver

• Now write the volume mesh.

– ASMO_Meshed_vol.msh.gz
– Or enter a proper name for the mesh
– Click OK.

• Optionally, switch to Fluent solution mode and

continue to solve
– Remember to scale the mesh!

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