© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 1
Advances in Pre-Processing
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 2
• ANSYS DesignModeler
– Modeling Improvements
• ANSYS SpaceClaim Direct Modeler
– Workbench Integration and Model Preparation
• ANSYS Meshing
– Assembly and General Meshing Improvements
• ANSYS ICEM CFD and ANSYS TGrid
Outline
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 3
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 (e.g. IcePak)
• ANSYS SpaceClaim Direct Modeler
– Improved Workbench integration
– Enhanced Model Preparation
• Interoperability
– Support for new CAD releases
– New CAD file readers
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 4
• Direct entity selections are accepted for Extrude, Revolve, Sweep and Skin/Loft operations
• Named selections and sketches remain supported as valid inputs for greater automation and flexibility
Direct Entity Input for Modeling Operations
Extrude Revolve Sweep
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 5
F3: Apply
F4: Cancel
F6: Toggle display (shaded+edges/shaded/wireframe)
F7: Zoom to Fit
Ctrl-A: Select All
Ctrl-P: Toggle Point selection filter
Ctrl-E: Toggle Edge selection filter
Ctrl-F: Toggle Face selection filter
Ctrl-B: Toggle Body selection filter
Sketching mode only
Ctrl-Z: Undo
Ctrl-Y: Redo
Ctrl-C: Copy
Ctrl-X: Cut
Ctrl-V: Paste
More Hot Keys
New set of hot keys (short cuts) for frequently repeated operations
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 6
• Improved visualization controls for modeling and topology verifications
• Available through View options or directly from the Toolbar
Additional Visualization Controls
Vertex Display Edge Direction Display
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 7
Single/Box selection toggle
• RMB + LMB combination to easily toggle between the two selection modes
Auto Freeze during slicing
• Slice feature and Slice Material operations are now available for all bodies
– Both active and frozen
• Active bodies involved in the slice are changed to frozen state automatically
Additional Usability Enhancements
Active Bodies Bodies involved in the slice are
changed to a frozen state automatically
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 8
Improved Named Selection transfer between ANSYS DesignModeler and other ANSYS Workbench applications
Improved Error handling
• Attach failures
• Share topology failures
A new export property inside DesignModeler to control named
selection transfer to other workbench applications
Improved error handling to provide appropriate error and warnings in
case of failures
Improved Named Selection Transfer and Error Handling
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 9
• Display of IcePak icons for IcePak bodies in the feature tree
• Part structure transfer to IcePak
• Ability to rename multiple bodies in a single step for easy organization
Electronics Tool Improvements - 1
Significant improvements in the custom tool to automate model simplification for flow and thermal analysis by IcePak
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 10
• Support for additional object types
– Axis aligned annular cylinder
– Axis aligned conical frustum
– Axis aligned annular conical frustum
• Support for Polygonal extrusion
Electronics Tool Improvements - 2
Additional object types and extrusion method for more realistic simplification of complex models
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 11
Performance Improvements
Example CAD to Meshing/Mechanical Transfer Time (Sec)
CAD to DM Transfer Time (Sec)
DM to Meshing/Mechanical Transfer Time (Sec)
R14.0 R13.0 % Diff
R14.0 R13.0 % Diff R14.0 R13.0 % Diff
Model 1 88.9 94.3 -5.7 233 176 32 82.4 81.3 1.2
Model 2 223.6 230.9 -3.1 650.1 746.5 -12.9 165.1 173.8 -5.0
Model 3 86.9 150.1 -42.1 76 137 -44.6 41.9 48.4 -13.3
Model 4 128.7 137.4 -6.3 168 173 -2.5 37.2 49.0 -24.0
Average Improvements
CAD to Meshing/Mechanical 16%
CAD to DM 32%; DM to Meshing/Mechanical 10%
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 12
Several new readers to provide two types of interfaces for all major CAD systems for improved productivity and flexibility
• Associative Interfaces
– Associative, parametric and Bi-directional
• Readers
– Native file readers for users without live CAD access
GAMBIT reader is enhanced to support non ACIS geometry
A new DWG Reader for AutoCAD
Improved model processing for faster and targeted updates
Improved CAD Interoperability
Pro/Engineer
ANSYS DesignModeler
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 13
Associative Interfaces (Associative, bidirectional and parametric)
• Creo Parametric
• Creo Elements/Pro
• Creo Elements/Direct Modeling
• Inventor 2012
• SolidWorks 2011
• NX 8.0
• Solid Edge ST3 (103)
• Solid Edge ST4
• CATIA V5 R21
• Teamcenter 8.0. 8.1, 8.3
CAD Readers
• AutoCAD 2012*
• Creo Elements/Pro
• NX 7.5
• Inventor 2011
• SolidWorks 2011
• Catia V5 R20
• Catia V4
• IGES and STEP
• Parasolid 24.0
• ACIS R21
• GAMBIT 2.4
* Requires an AutoCAD installation
CAD Interoperability Options
New(updated) Geometry Interfaces at R14.0
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 14
CAD Configuration Manager
Configure to select a Reader or an Associative Interface
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 15
• Improved Workbench Integration
• Improved Associativity and data transfer
• Support for multiple design points
• Enhanced Model Preparation Tools for Simulation
• Preview options for Topology Sharing
• Volume Extract Tool Improvements
• Additional Selection and Repair Options
ANSYS SpaceClaim Enhancements
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 16
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
ANSYS SpaceClaim: Improved Integration
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 17
• 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
ANSYS SpaceClaim: Volume Extract Tool Improvements
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 18
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
ClipView Without multi-face
patch on With multi-face
patch on
ANSYS SpaceClaim: Improved Selection and Repair
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 19
ANSYS 14.0 Meshing Advances
Focus on enhancing your productivity through new features, increased flexibility, efficiency and usability
• Rapid Meshing
– Reduce time spent in CAD and Meshing
– Improved handling of complicated geometries
– Extract flow volume during meshing
• General Improvements in Meshing Process
– Improved meshing algorithms
– Improved process and flexibility
– Improved robustness
– Improved speed
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 20
Assembly Meshing
Assembly meshing is a top-down meshing approach to mesh all parts at 1 time:
• Use of virtual bodies (material points) to extract flow regions from dirty geometry
• Support for:
– Meshing solids from sheet bodies
– Conformal mesh between parts w/out having multi-body parts
– Support for overlapping bodies
Material point
Assembly
Capping Face
Handling face-edge connectivity
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 21
• Assembly meshing replaces 13.0 CutCell Meshing at the GUI level
• Supports both CutCell and Tetrahedral meshes
• CutCell meshing maintains characteristics from 13.0 – 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
Assembly Meshing: Characteristics
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 22
1. Define Coordinate system inside the Fluid Void
2. Insert a Virtual body
3. Assign the proper Coordinate System to the Material Point in the details of the Virtual Body
4. Done
Assembly Meshing: Flow Volume Extraction
#1
#2
#3
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 23
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
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 24
Inflation Improvements
Industrial Example:
• 68 Million cells, 5 inflation layers
• Total Mesh Time:
•R13: 6 hrs 39 mins
•R14: 3 hrs 38 mins
Speed and Flexibility of inflation:
• Several improvements to both assembly and part meshing
– Better quality during stair stepping
– Better handling of high aspect ratio inflation
– Improved speed of inflation creation ~30-100%
• Assembly Meshing Flexibility – CutCell: Full support of 2-stage inflation • CutCell and inflation in two separate steps
– Within the working session
– Tetrahedron: Uses pre-inflation
• Faster, more layers, and better quality
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 25
Also supported for Virtual Bodies
• Program controlled inflation acts only on Fluid Bodies
Assembly Meshing: Automatic Inflation
CutCell + Inflation Tetrahedron + Inflation
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 26
• 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:
Assembly Meshing: Sharp Angle Tool
Sharp angles in the Flow volume of drill bit
Mesh without Sharp Angle
Mesh with Sharp Angle
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 27
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
Assembly Meshing Leak Handling: Leakage Path
There is a small gap between the valve plug and the valve seat
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 28
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 has changed at 14.0
• Contacts have several purposes for Assembly Meshing:
– Closing of small gaps using contact sizing
– Find thin sections
– Find Contacts
• Features at contact pairs are preserved
• Contacts are also used in Fluid Surface picker helper
Assembly Meshing Leak Handling: Contact (Interface) Regions
For example, in this image the circled edges would be removed without contact defined since the feature angle is below the default
(40 degrees)
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 29
Contact sizing: Three simple steps 1. Insert a Face-Face Contact between
the entities that are leaking
– Face/Face or Face/Edge
2. Drag and drop the contact on top of the Mesh Icon
– Creates a Contact sizing
3. Adjust Contact sizing
– Should be bigger than the gap
• Limited to gaps up to 1/5 of min-size
4. Generate Mesh
Assembly Meshing Leak Handling: Closing Leaks up to 1/5 of min size
#1
#2
#3
Pick the face of the valve plug (blue)
and the edge of the valve seat (red)
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 30
Why locate thin sections (3D bodies)?
• Avoid Leakage
• 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
Assembly Meshing: Finding Thin Sections
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 31
Assembly Meshing: Fluid Surfaces
Creating Fluid Surfaces for Flow Volume meshing • Description
– Pick all faces that make up the wetted surface of the flow volume
• Applications
– Mainly used when only flow volume is needed
• No conjugate heat transfer
• Advantage
– Faster
– Less memory
– Reduction of leakages
• Approach
– Insert Virtual Body
– Insert Fluid Surface (select faces)
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 32
Assembly Meshing: Fluid Surfaces
• To manually select all the faces making up all the flow volume is in many assemblies too time consuming – To help out with this task,
we have added a new picker helper: Extend to Connection!
• To use this, you need to have proper connections defined – Connections are created
automatically in WB, so to start with: delete all the old connections !
• Create New Connections – Make sure min-size is properly set !
– RMB – Find Contacts
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 33
Assembly Meshing: Miscellaneous Features
• Size Function improvements – Separate Min size for Curvature
and Proximity
– Less mesh clustering
– Support for Body of Influence
• “Mesh Unite” Fluid or Solid bodies using Mesh Groups – Improve quality of the mesh by releasing geometry
constraints at interfaces
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 34
• Controls order of body meshing:
– Allows selective body meshing to remain persistent
– User can record meshing operations, or add steps manually
Selective Meshing Worksheet
For Example: User
wants an all hex
mesh on quarter
piston model
Due to complexity in
meshing, user may
want to control
sequence of meshing
steps
If recording, steps will
be automatically
created.
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 35
Meshing steps relate to Named Selection:
– When recording, named selections are created for user
Selective Meshing Worksheet: Recording
For example, if recording meshing steps,
and user meshes 1 body:
1. Step will be added to Worksheet
2. Named selection will automatically be
created
3. Step will not be included in output to
solver unless “Send to Solver” is
changed to “Yes’
#1
#2
#3
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 36
When meshing, if the order in Worksheet needs to be adjusted, this can be done in 1 of several ways:
1. Add, Delete steps
2. Change Contents of Named Selection
Selective Meshing Worksheet: Editing
Note: Add will only append to end of
Worksheet, so option #2 is often
better.
Also, use Active/Inactive options for
more flexibility, see following slides
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 37
Virtual Topologies: Interactive editing
Tree view is replaced with graphical selections:
Select objects and RMBOperate, or use icon palette to:
– Merge Edges or Faces
– Split Edges or Faces
– Create Hard Vertex
– Shuffle through VTs (order depicts order of creation)
– Edit VTs to see VT options
– Delete
Virtual Topology Detail View:
– Global behavior
– Statistics view added
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 38
Virtual Topologies Example: Blunt body
Flexibility: Allows user to get mapped or swept mesh for non-mappable/non-sweepable bodies
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 39
Virtual Topologies Example: Intersecting Pipes
Use Virtual Splits for hex meshing
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 40
Robustness Improvements:
– MultiZone, Sweep and Thin Sweep
– Improved case handling for MultiZone
MultiZone improvements:
– Performance improvements
– Support for match mesh control
– All Prisms option
Hexahedral Meshing
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 41
MultiZone: Robustness Improvements
Support for:
• Handling of cylindrical side faces
• Imprinting – Through bodies
– Through long stretches of connected side faces
– Through side faces
– General improvements
• Support for edge splits
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 42
MultiZone: Mesh Matching
Added Support for Mesh Matching:
– Cyclic/Periodic Symmetry and/or match mesh control
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 43
MultiZone: Performance Improvements
0:00
2:24
4:48
7:12
9:36
12:00
14:24
12.1 13.0 14.0
Speed Improvements:
– Better performance for swept blocks
– Improved multi-body part handling
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 44
• Robustness and Quality improvements in tri surface meshing, inflation and tetrahedral meshing
• Separated Min Size for Curvature and Proximity
• Added new option for Advancing Front Triangle Surface Meshing
Tetrahedral Meshing
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 45
Connections for Fluent
• In 14.0, information in the contact folder will be written as mesh
interfaces for Fluent
• If you have contacts/connections in an old database, the user is asked to remove the contact information
• A new WB option to NOT generate contacts automatically is available
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 46
Connections for Fluent
• Start Workbench and open ToolsOptions
• Go to Either Meshing or Mechanical
• Unselect “Auto Detect Contact on Attach”
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 47
Productivity enhancements through increased robustness, flexibility, and efficiency
• Over 200 defects and feature requests resolved
• User interface – Selection and Display Enhancements
– Model tree enhancements
– Enhanced Subsets
• Mesh Editing – Enhanced Prism editing, refinement, etc.
• Output – Enhanced output to CGNS, ANSYS FLUENT
ANSYS ICEM CFD 14.0 Update
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 48
Enhanced Core Meshing Technology
• Hexa Blocking – Improved interaction
– Enhanced Create, Split, Move, Link, Smooth, Index control, etc.
• MultiZone
– Enhanced Robustness, Sweep, Periodicity, etc.
ANSYS ICEM CFD 14.0 Update
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 49
Enhanced Core Meshing Technology • Tetra/Prism
– TGrid Implementation Refactored
• New “Batch Refinement Tool”
ANSYS ICEM CFD Update
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 50
Driven by Assembly meshing technology exposed in ANSYS Meshing • Assembly Meshing features
– Material points • /mesh/cutcell/set/create-material-points
– Sharp angle and feature capturing • /mesh/cutcell/set/set-thin-cut-faces
• /mesh/cutcell/set/set-thin-cut-edges
– Leak path, CutCell-to-Tet conversion, etc.
• Prism speedup (~2x)
• Defect fixing – Wrapper, CutCell, surface meshing, tet meshing,
topology handling, prisms, etc.
• Updated wrapper templates – Contact support for latest version, tutorials
TGrid 14.0 Update
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 51
Interactive TGrid in ANSYS Meshing
Interactive TGrid through Assembly meshing (Beta)
• Beta option enabled and TGrid (or Extended) license available
• The current geometry will be read into TGrid in a faceted format and Size Function , CutCell Objects, Features and Inflation controls will be transferred to the TGrid session
• In TGrid the faceted geometries can be checked, SF controls modified, CutCell mesh generated, checked and improved
• For Tetrahedron, necessary commands to convert CutCell to a tetrahedral mesh are listed in the transcript window
– Scroll back and cut and paste in the commands
• Session is returned to ANSYS Meshing upon exit
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 52
Summary
ANSYS 14.0 Geometry advances greatly improve 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
© 2011 ANSYS, Inc. May 9, 2012 53
Summary
ANSYS 14.0 Meshing advances greatly improve productivity through new features, increased flexibility, efficiency and usability
• Rapid Meshing
– Reduce time spent in CAD and Meshing
– Improved handling of complicated geometries
– Extract flow volume during meshing
• General Improvements in Meshing Process
– Improved meshing algorithms
– Improved process and flexibility
– Improved robustness
– Improved speed
Top Related