Chapter 2

Geometry

ICEM CFD Introductory Course

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Geometry

Geometry handling

Training Manual

ANSYS ICEM CFD was designed to mainly import geometry, not create complicated geometries, although many geometry tools are provided An accurate solution reflects the underlying geometry. To get such, ICEM CFD provides: Geometry import
Directly from CAD package 3rd party formats (step, acis, etc) via Workbench/Design Modeler

Surface geometry kernel

Imported solids are converted to surfaces

Many internal CAD tools

Geometry creation Geometry modification Geometry fixing
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

This Jet engine model was built solely with ICEM CFD geometry tools
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Geometry

Geometry Import
CAD from just about any source Direct CAD Interfaces

Training Manual

Set up ICEMCFD/AI*E meshing requirements within CAD environment Saved within CAD part Retained for parametric geometry changes Directly write out ICEM formatted geometry (tetin file) No 3rd party exchange (clean!) ProE Catia V4 Unigraphics IDEAS SolidWorks

Direct import
ACIS (.sat) CATIA V4 DWG/DXF

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

GEMS IDEAS (IDI) Parasolid

STEP/IGES Pro/E Unigraphics

Pro/E, UG, and Solidworks direct import requires actual CAD libraries; actual CAD software and licensing must be available
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Geometry

Geometry Import - other sources

Training Manual

When CAD is not available, an old legacy model or the x-ray scan of the part can be imported as geometry. This input is a collection of facets (triangulated surfaces). Faceted Data
Nastran Patran STL (most common) VRML Other solver formats (indirectly from mesh conversion)

Formatted Point Data

Auto curve/surface creation from regular points

Workbench Readers

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Anything that Workbench can import can also be imported into ICEM CFD using Workbench readers Requires Workbench to be installed
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Geometry

Open Geometry
Geometry saved as tetin (*.tin file)
Legacy name as an abbreviation of tetra input. Surface geometry kernel
Any imported solid models are represented as a series of watertight surfaces

Training Manual

Surfaces are internally represented as triangulated data

Resolution or approximation of true spline surface data set by Triangulation Tolerance Smaller value = better resolution 0.001 works best for most models Use a high tri tolerance to work with a large model, but lower the tolerance when it comes time to compute the mesh Not used if surfaces are already facetized (e.g. STL, VRML)
Tri tolerance = 0.1
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

Tri tolerance = 0.001

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Geometry

Geometry Creation Tools

Training Manual

Screen Select Explicit Coordinates Base Point and Delta Center of 3 Points Parameter Along a Vector Curve Ends Curve-Curve Intersection Parameter along a Curve Project Point to Curve Project Point to Surface
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

From Points Arc Through 3 Points Arc from Center Point/2 Points on Plane Surface Parameter Surface-Surface Intersection Project Curve on Surface Segment Curve Concatenate Curves Surface Boundary Modify Curves
Reverse direction Extend Match curves Bridge curves 2-6

From Curves Curve Driven Sweep Surface Surface of Revolution Offset Surface Midsurface Adjust varying thickness Loft Surface Over Several Curves Curtain Surface

Segment/Trim Surface Merge/Reapproxi mate Surface Geometry Simplification

Convex Hull Cartesian Shrinkwrap

Create Std Geometry

Sphere Box Cylinder Plane Disc Trim normal to curve
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Geometry

Faceted Geometry Handling

Training Manual

Create/Modify Faceted

Convert from Bspline Create Curve Move nodes Merge nodes Create segment Delete segment Split segment Restrict segments Move to new curve Move to existing curve

Convert from Bspline Coarsen Surface Create Surface Merge Edges Split Edges Swap Edges Move Nodes Merge Nodes

Create Triangles Delete Triangles Split Triangles Restrict Triangles Move to new/existing Part Merge Surfaces

Align Edge to Curve Close Faceted Holes Trim by Screen Loop Trim by Surface Loop

Facetted (triangulated) surfaces

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Geometry

Geometry Handling
Repair Geometry Transformation Tools

Training Manual

Build Diagnostic Topology Close Holes Remove Holes Stitch/Match Edges Surface extension Un-trim surface Split by curvature Modify surface normals Bolt hole detection Button detection Fillet detection

Restore Dormant Entity Curves/points originally made Translate inactive - ignored Rotate by meshing tools Mirror Restore to Scale activate again seen as Translate & Rotate constraints by Three Points meshing tools Curve to Curve

Delete Points Curves Surfaces Bodies Any Entity

Build topology with filtering

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ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

Geometry

Building Topology Determine Connectivity

Training Manual

Geometry -> Repair Geometry -> Build Diagnostic Topology To diagnose potential geometry problems
Shows potential leakage (tetra octree) Shows where surface mesh may not be connected Patch dependent surface mesher requires build topology Tolerance
Specifies allowable gap between surfaces Size should be set reasonably to ignore small gaps, but not allow leakage (tetra octree) or remove important features Connectivity is set up between surface edges that meet within the tolerance Filtering should be off when using to determine connectivity Edge 1 Edge 2 Tolerance

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Geometry

Building Topology Color Coding

Color coding

Training Manual

Topology curves are color coded to indicate their surface connection status
green = unconnected, yellow = single, red = double, blue = multiple, Grey = dormant (filtered out) Turn color coding off on in Model tree > Geometry > Curves > Color by count Red curves indicate two surfaces meet within the tolerance, This is what you want for a solid model. Yellow curves will usually indicate some repair is required
Can you spot the hole in the solid? Now you can find the hole Yellow curves indicate that the surface is probably missing or the gap is greater than the tolerance

Build Topology

Red curves indicate that surfaces meet within the tolerance setting
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ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

Geometry

Build Topology Extract Curves and Points

Training Manual

Automatically extracts curves and points from the surfaces

Filter by angle (default 30 degrees)
Filter Points: Points between two curves whose tangency is below the feature angle will be filtered out (made dormant) Filter Curves: Curves between two surfaces whose tangency is below the feature angle will be filtered out (made dormant)

No filtering Tetra octree and patch dependent surface mesher enforce nodes on the curves

Filtering

Needs smaller mesh size at fillets

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ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

Geometry

Build Topology Segment Surfaces

Training Manual

Automatically segments all surfaces where curves either make a complete loop on the surface or span across the surface Turn Split surface at T-connections off to turn off segmenting
You can then delete any surfaces you want

Build topology

Check off to disable segmenting

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Geometry

Tolerance setting
Set adequate tolerance!
Example: some multiple (blue) edges. This indicates that more then two surfaces meet within the tolerance setting Turning on the surfaces reveals one surface is now missing. In this case, the tolerance was set to greater than the thickness, one of the surfaces was seen as a duplicate within the tolerance and removed. UNDO You will need to exercise care not to damage your model with build topology Rule of thumb: tolerance should be about 1/10th smallest foreseen mesh size or smallest feature that you wish to capture Build topology with delete duplicate geometry because its tolerance is zero
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

Training Manual

0.09

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Geometry

Building Topology Other Options

Training Manual

New Part Name

Inherited: Default: new curves and points will inherit the part names from surfaces they are extracted from
Check off Inherit Part to type a new name or choose from the list

Single curve cleanup

Merges single edge curves with a second tolerance while resolving sliver surfaces (normally larger than base tolerance)

Split Surface at T-connections

Resulting mesh will conform to common edge even though the surface is not split into two separate surfaces Will also split a surface into separate surfaces if the curves form a closed loop or span across the surface

Split Surface at Interior Curves

Surfaces trimmed along curves that dont span surface or form a closed loop Resulting mesh will conform to curve
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Geometry

Building Topology Other Options

Method
All parts, default method Only visible parts

Training Manual

Build topology is only run on active Parts in the model tree Inactive Parts are not affected

Selection
Build topology on one or more surface entities

Part by part
Build topology is run on one part at a time Use with assemblies to keep parts separate Otherwise build topology may fix gaps, create T-connections or remove duplicates across Parts

Delete unattached curves and points

Removes unattached curves (green) and points after running build topology Easy clean-up of unwanted curves/points Users may, however, wish to keep these curves/points for construction purposes (turn option off)
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Geometry

Demo
Watch the instructor demo this stamped part
Mid surfacing Build topology Filtering curves and points Close multiple holes

Training Manual

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Geometry

Workshop

Training Manual

Engine Part
Build topology Retrim surfaces Match surfaces Fill gaps Close holes Remove holes Extruded surface Delete unattached

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.

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