Tutorial 6.

Non-Conformal Mesh

Introduction: This tutorial compares the effects of using a conformal mesh versus a
non-conformal mesh in a simple pin-fin heat sink problem.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to:
• Generate a non-conformal mesh and related parameters such as bounding box,
slacks etc.
• Understand the effects of non-conformal mesh on total mesh counts and on
results
• Generate and compare summary reports.
• Apply non-conformal rules and restrictions

Prerequisites: This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the menu structure in
ANSYS Icepak and that you have solved the sample session and Tutorial 1. Some
steps in the setup and solution procedure will not be shown explicitly.

Problem Description: The model consists of a pin-fin heat sink composed of alu-
minum, which is in contact with a source dissipating 10 W, as shown in Figure 6.1.
The source-heatsink assembly sits in the middle of a wind tunnel with a wind speed
of 1.0 m/s. The ambient temperature is 20 ◦ C. The flow regime is turbulent.
The objective of this exercise is to become familiar with the non-conformal mesh-
ing methodology and its application. The solution results of conformal and non-
conformal mesh will be examined and compared.
In ANSYS Icepak, assemblies of objects can be meshed separately. A region can be
defined around a particular assembly and this region can be meshed independently
of the mesh outside this region. This allows a fine mesh to be confined in a particular
region of interest and it helps to reduce overall mesh count without sacrificing the
accuracy of the results.

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Figure 6.1: Problem Specification

Step 1: Create a New Project

Open a new project and name it non-conformal.

Step 2: Build the Model

• Cabinet
Enter the following start and end locations for the Cabinet.

xS 0.3m xE 0.7m
yS 0.5m yE 0.7m
zS 0.0m zE 1.0m

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– Opening on Cabinet Boundaries

Open the Cabinet object panel. In the Properties tab, change Wall type of Min
z to Opening. Click Edit to open the Openings panel and enter 1 m/s for Z
velocity and keep Temperature as ambient (which is 20◦ C).
– Grille on Cabinet Boundaries
Under the Cabinet Properties tab, change the wall type of Max z to Grille. Click
Edit to open the Grille panel. Change the free area ratio to 0.8 and leave the
other default property specifications.

Figure 6.2: Grille Properties Specifications

• Source
Create a source using the following dimensions:

Object Specification
source.1 xS = 0.48m xE = 0.52m Total heat = 30
Geometry: Rectangular yS = 0.52m yE = — Watts
Plane: X-Z zS = 0.48m zE = 0.52m

• Heat sink
Now, create a heat sink with the following geometrical and physical properties.

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Geometry Settings
Plane: X-Z
Start/end
Base height: 0.02m
Overall height: 0.1m
xS = 0.46m, xE = 0.54m
yS = 0.50m, yE = —
zS = 0.40m, zE = 0.6m
Properties Type: Detailed
Flow direction: Z
Detailed fin type: Cross cut extrusion
Fin geometry/Fin spec: Count/thick
Count: 8 in Z and 8 in X
Thickness: 0.01m in Z and 0.004m in X
default base and pin material

The screen shots of the heatsink panel is shown in Figure 6.3.

Figure 6.3: Heat sink Properties

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Step 3: Generate a Conformal Mesh

Generate a conformal mesh for the model.

1. Open the Mesh control panel using Model−→Generate mesh.

(a) In the Mesh control panel, set the Max X size to 0.02m, the Max Y size to
0.01m and the Max Z size to 0.05m.
(b) Under Global settings, make sure that Normal mesh is selected next to Mesh
parameters.
(c) Check on Accept “change value” checks option and click Generate mesh.
The minimum gap for X, Y, Z might adjust to 10% of the minimum dimension
in respective directions. Make a note of the number of elements, the minimum
face alignment and the aspect ratio.

2. Examine the mesh.

(a) Click the Display tab.
(b) Turn on the Cut plane option.
(c) In the Set position drop-down list, select Y plane through center.
(d) Turn on the Display mesh option.
The mesh display plane is an x-z plane cut through the center of the cabinet as
shown in Figure 6.4. Note the clustered mesh lines extending from the heat sink all
the way across the domain in both the x and z directions. The total number of cells
is about 84000.

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Figure 6.4: Conformal Mesh, Central Y Plane

3. Turn off the mesh display.

(a) Deselect the Display mesh option.
(b) Click Close to close the Mesh control panel.

Step 4: Physical and Numerical Settings

Before starting the solver, you will first review estimates of the Reynolds and Peclet
numbers to check that the proper flow regime is being modeled.
Check the values of the Reynolds and Peclet numbers.

Solution settings−→ Basic settings

Click Reset in the Basic settings panel. Check the values printed to the Message window.
The Reynolds and Peclet numbers are approximately 12600 and 8900, respectively, so
the flow is turbulent.
To set up turbulent flow, expand the Problem setup tree (top of the Model tree), select
Basic parameters and choose the Zero equation turbulence model under the General setup
tab. Click Accept to accept the new solver settings.
Select the Basic settings panel in the Solution settings branch of the tree and set the
Number of iterations to 300. Go to Advanced settings and specify Under-relaxation factors
for Pressure, Momentum and Temperature as 0.7, 0.3 and 1.0 respectively.

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Define a monitor point by dragging the source object (source.1) into the Points folder.
This will create a monitor point for temperature of the object, which can be used to
judge convergence.

Step 5: Save the Model

ANSYS Icepak will save the model for you automatically before it starts the calculation,
but it is a good idea to save the model (including the mesh) before the solution. The
model can be saved using File−→Save project.

Step 6: Calculate a Solution

Start the calculation by clicking on Solve−→Run solution. Specify “conformal” as the
Solution ID. Click Start solution to start the solver.

Step 7: Examine the Results

In this step, you will examine the maximum temperature using ANSYS Icepak’s summary
reporting tool.
Report−→Summary report

1. Define a report that will display temperature data for the source and the heat sink.
(a) In the Define summary report panel, click New.
(b) In the Objects drop-down list, select heatsink.1 and click Accept.
(c) In the Value drop-down list, select Temperature.
(d) Repeat steps (a) through (c) for source.1.

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(e) Click Write to generate a summary report.

ANSYS Icepak will open the Report summary data panel, where minimum, maximum,
and mean temperatures for the heat sink and source are displayed. Note that the
maximum temperature is about 36.8 ◦ C.

2. Click Done to close the Report summary data panel.

3. Click Close to close the Define summary report panel.

Step 8: Add an Assembly to the Model

You will now create an assembly out of the source and heat sink objects. The assembly
will be meshed separately from the rest of the model.

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Because you are changing the current model, thereby invalidating the post processing data
that has been loaded from the previous steps, you will need to generate a mesh (a non-
conformal mesh) and calculate the solution again which is shown in steps 9 through 11.

1. Create an assembly consisting of the source and the heat sink objects.

(a) Click the Create assemblies button ( ) to create a new assembly. This will
create an assembly node in the Model manager window under the Model node.
(b) Select the source.1 item under the Model node in the Model manager window,
hold down the <Ctrl> key, and then select the heatsink.1 item.
(c) Hold down the left mouse button, drag both highlighted items into the assem-
bly.1 node of the tree, then release the left mouse button.

2. Edit the assembly and define its bounding box.

(a) Select the assembly.1 node in the Model manager window, and then double
click the Edit object button ( ) to open the Assemblies panel.
(b) Click the Meshing tab.
(c) Turn on the Mesh separately option and enter the following Slack parameters
shown in Figure 6.5.

Figure 6.5: Slack Values and Mesh Controls in the Separately Mesh Assembly

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This will create a bounding box region that is 0.05 m larger than the assembly
on four sides. Since Min Y is already at the bottom of the cabinet, no slack
value can be provided for it. A larger slack value of 0.15m has been provided
in the Max Z direction to resolve the wake region. Smaller Max X and Max
Z grid size has been specified within the assembly as compared to the global
max grid size. This helps to refine the mesh within the separately meshed
assembly.
(d) Click Done to set the properties of the assembly and close the panel.
The new model is shown in Figure 6.6.

Figure 6.6: The Source and Heat Sink in a Separately Meshed Assembly

Step 9: Generate a Non-conformal Mesh

assembly.1 will be meshed separately when the mesh is generated. The non-conformal
mesh will limit the clustering to a region inside a bounding box slightly larger than the
source-heatsink assembly.

1. Generate a non-conformal mesh for the model.

Model−→Generate mesh
(a) In the Mesh control panel, keep the Max X size set to 0.02m, the Max Y size
set to 0.01m, and the Max Z size set to 0.05m.
(b) Under Global settings, turn on the Mesh assemblies separately option.

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(c) Click Generate mesh.

Make a note of the number of elements, the minimum face alignment, and the
aspect ratio.

2. Examine the mesh.

(a) Click the Display tab.
(b) Turn on the Cut plane option.
(c) In the Set position drop-down list, select Y plane through center.
(d) Turn on the Display mesh option.
The mesh display plane is an x-z plane cut through the center of the cabinet
as shown in Figure 6.7. Note the clustered mesh lines extending from the heat
sink all the way across the domain in both the x and z directions only within
the bounds of the assembly. The total number of cells is about 68000, about
0.8 times the mesh count of the conformal mesh.

Figure 6.7: Non-conformal Mesh

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3. Turn off the mesh display.

(a) Deselect the Display mesh option.
(b) Click Close to close the Mesh control panel.

Step 10: Save the Model

ANSYS Icepak will save the model for you automatically before it starts the calculation,
but it is a good idea to save the model (including the mesh) yourself as well.
File−→Save project

Step 11: Calculate a Solution

1. Retain the same Number of iterations (300) in the Basic settings panel.

2. Start the Solution.

Solve−→Run solution
(a) Specify non-conformal as the Solution ID.
(b) Click Start solution to start the solver.
The monitor point that you already created will automatically be used for the new
solution.
The solution will converge after about 150 iterations. Note, however, that the exact
number of iterations required for convergence may vary on different computers.

Step 12: Examine the Results

In this step, you will examine the maximum and minimum temperatures of the source
and heat sink in the new version of the model.
Report−→Summary report

1. Define a report that will display temperature data for the assembly.
(a) Retain the same temperature report of the source and the heat sink, as used
in the version without the assembly.

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(b) Click Write to generate a summary report.

Note that the maximum temperature is about 36.63◦ C, representing a tem-
perature rise of about 16.63◦ C from the ambient temperature of 20◦ C. The
maximum temperature is very close to that obtained in the version with con-
formal mesh.

2. Click Done to close the Report summary data panel.

3. Click Close to close the Define summary report panel.

Step 13: Summary

In this tutorial, you generated both a conformal and a non-conformal mesh for a simple
source-heatsink geometry and compared the two sets of results. The comparison found
an approximate 20 percent reduction in the number of cells for the non-conformal mesh
with a negligible change in the temperature data.

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