{"id":4857,"date":"2011-12-13T10:49:48","date_gmt":"2011-12-12T23:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.computationalfluiddynamics.com.au\/?p=168"},"modified":"2011-12-13T10:49:48","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T23:49:48","slug":"tips-and-tricks-sweep-meshing-in-ansys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/cfd\/tips-and-tricks-sweep-meshing-in-ansys\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips & Tricks: Sweep Meshing in ANSYS"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

For this post, we’ll discuss a topic which allows you to complement your\u00a0understanding of\u00a0global and local mesh controls that we have covered previously.\u00a0 Sweep meshing is a meshing method available in ANSYS Meshing that is important for all CFD users to understand and can be readily used to maintain high solver accuracy at the same time as reducing mesh cell counts (leading to a serious speedup in solve times).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Sweep Method begins by meshing a particular ‘source’ surface using either the automatic global settings, or any local sizing controls \/ inflation layers that have been applied by the user.\u00a0 It will then “sweep” the source mesh (which can represent any arbitrary cross-section) through the body, spacing it by a certain incremental dimension or by splitting the swept side faces\u00a0into\u00a0a desired\u00a0number of divisions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Sweep<\/a>
Sweep Mesh Examples<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

To fully utilise the benefits of the Sweep Method, it is useful to consider which regions of our domain will use the Sweep Method during the geometry stage (in ANSYS DesignModeler or when creating your fluid domain in your original CAD software).\u00a0 This allows us to appropriately decompose or slice our domain into a combination of individually “sweepable” bodies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is useful when you first open ANSYS Meshing to Right click on “Mesh” in the left-hand model tree\u00a0and choose the option to \u201cShow” -> “Sweepable Bodies\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Upon choosing this option, any bodies within your assembly that can be swept automatically will be shown in green on your screen.<\/p>\n

\"Showing<\/a>
Showing Sweepable Bodies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you expected that something should have been sweepable but it\u00a0is not shown in green,\u00a0then you may need to decompose the domain further such that any problematic bodies have a topology that can be swept.\u00a0 Often the problem is due to some small sliver surface or other area that is inhibiting the regular grid-like ‘map meshing’ of all side faces (along the direction of the sweep) which simply need to be cleaned up before this can occur.\u00a0 This can be done either back in DesignModeler, or using ‘Virtual Topology’ tools right here in ANSYS Meshing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once you are happy with the geometry, you can insert a sweep method by Right Clicking on Mesh in the Outline Tree and\u00a0choosing to Insert -> Method.\u00a0\u00a0 We then change the type to Sweep, and choose the body that we aim to sweep.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If we require inflation layers, which we generally do (and will discuss in a future post), then we choose\u00a0the source face for the Sweep Method (or for additional control, both the source and target faces).\u00a0 This is required so that the meshing application knows explicitly which face to mesh first before sweeping this meshed cross section through the rest of the\u00a0body.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At this point, we can choose to create an initial mesh to confirm that the swept mesh can be created as expected.\u00a0 We can then apply additional face sizing and inflation to the source face and generate a final swept mesh for the body.\u00a0 You can see in the image below that the source face on the end of the cylinder has been meshed, which was then brought through the swept section at specified intervals resulting in a mapped quad (rectangular) mesh on the side faces of the cylinder.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Swept<\/a>
Unstructured Swept Mesh with Inflation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If the mesh on the source face was also entirely composed of\u00a0a quad surface mesh, then the entire mesh generated would be hexahedral.\u00a0 In this particular case, we have started with triangular surface\u00a0elements on the source face (with quad elements in the critical inflation layer region), which results in a hybrid prism\/hex mesh within the meshed volume.\u00a0 The advantage of this approach is that\u00a0it\u00a0will yield more accurate results than a full tetrahedral mesh, in a much shorter time due to a reduced total number of cells.\u00a0 This is particularly true in flow-aligned geometries such as internal flow through pipes or ducts with\u00a0arbitrarily complex\u00a0cross-sectional shapes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In our next\u00a0post, we will continue with our discussion on preferred meshing methods for CFD by looking at how to add Inflation Layers to your simulation.\u00a0 We’ll discuss their importance to CFD accuracy, how to properly define them and explain the preferred settings.\u00a0 In the meantime, please contact our Support Team if you have any further questions on meshing for your particular applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For this post, we’ll discuss a topic which allows you to complement your\u00a0understanding of\u00a0global and local mesh controls that we have covered previously.\u00a0 Sweep meshing is a meshing method available in ANSYS Meshing that is important for all CFD users to understand and can be readily used to maintain high solver accuracy at the same… Read More »Tips & Tricks: Sweep Meshing in ANSYS<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[323],"tags":[171,495],"class_list":["post-4857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cfd","tag-ansys","tag-sweep-meshing-in-ansys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leapaust.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}