18.

0 Release

Workshop 01: Flow Distribution in an Air Manifold

Introduction to ANSYS Fluent

1 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Problem Description
• Manifold is connected to an air supply pumping 3 liters per minute
• Goal is to split the airstream into three streams each at 1 liter per minute
– Within +/- 5%

• Gauge pressure = 0 Pa at each of the three outlets

• Simulation will predict whether the desired flow uniformity can be achieved
with the existing design

It’s a good idea to identify the key

simulation outcomes from the
start. You can use these to monitor
progress of solution.

2 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Geometry and Operating Conditions

Air supplied to
inlet at 3 liters
per minute

3 outlets @ gauge pressure = 0 Pa

3 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Start Workbench
• Start Workbench either from
the desktop icon or from
– Start > All Programs > ANSYS
18.0 > Workbench 18.0

• In Workbench, go to File >

Save As… and save the
project as WS01-Manifold

4 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Add Fluent Analysis System
• In the Toolbox on the left side
of the Workbench Window,
under Analysis Systems double
click on Fluid Flow (Fluent) to
add a Fluent Analysis System to
the Project Schematic window

5 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Option 1 – Meshing Option

• You will perform the following steps

– Import CAD
– Assign Named Selections
– Generate Mesh
– Start Fluent

• For Option 2 – Non-Meshing Option, skip ahead to Page 14

6 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Meshing Option: Import Geometry from CAD
• Copy the file base-design.stp
from the workshop input files
to the directory where you
have saved your Workbench
project
• Right click Geometry (cell A2)
in the Analysis System, select
Import Geometry, navigate to
your working directory and
select basic-design.stp
• Double click Mesh (cell A3) to
launch ANSYS Meshing

7 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Meshing Option: Named Selection
1. Ensure that Face is selected in
the toolbar
1. 2. Left click on the first outlet to
select it (selected face turns
green)
3. Then right click and choose
Create Named Selection (N)
2. 4. Enter outlet1 for Selection Name
and click OK (not shown)

3.
8 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Meshing Option: Finish the Named Selections
Repeat the steps on the previous
slide to create Named Selections for
the other circular faces. Clicking a
Named Selection in the tree on the
left will cause it to be highlighted in
the graphics window.
A. outlet1
B. outlet2
C. outlet3
D. inlet
Named Selections are used so that you can define boundary conditions in Fluent. Faces that
are not assigned to a Named Selection are automatically assigned to be walls in Fluent.
Therefore, in this model, Named Selections are only needed for inlets and outlets. In other
models you might want to also assign named selections to one or more different walls.
9 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Meshing Option: Mesh Settings
1. Left click on Mesh in the
outline tree.
2. In the Details panel, expand
the branch labeled Sizing
3. Find the row named
1. Relevance Center and change
its value from Coarse to
4. Medium to increase mesh
accuracy
2.
4. Use the arrow in the Details
panel to scroll down and
expand the Inflation branch
5. 5. Change the Automatic
Inflation setting to Program
3. Controlled

10 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Meshing Option: Generate Mesh
Click Generate Mesh to create
the mesh
After the mesh has been
created, go to File > Close
Meshing

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 Meshing Option: Update the Mesh Cell
1. Right click on Mesh (A3)
and select Update
2. A green check mark will
2. appear next to mesh

3. 3. The setup cell status

1. changes to indicating
you are ready to start
Fluent
4. Move to Page 16
In the previous slide, Workbench generated the mesh in its own
internal format. In the Update operation illustrated here,
Workbench writes the mesh file in the Fluent mesh format so
that it will load into Fluent when Setup is opened.

12 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Non-Meshing Option: Load Mesh

1. Copy the file base-design.msh from the

workshop input files to the folder where you
saved the Workbench project (not shown)

3. After browsing to folder, change

selection filter to FLUENT Mesh File
2. Right click on Setup and choose Import and select base-design.msh. Click
Fluent Case, then Browse OK when prompted

13 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Non-Meshing Option: Fluent System
• Note that the Fluent system
has changed after the mesh is
imported – the Geometry and
Mesh cells are not required
because the mesh was loaded
directly into Fluent
• Alternatively, when starting
with a mesh file, you can use a
Collapse Analysis
Fluent component system Systems and expand
Component Systems
• The only difference is the
Results cell, which is not
always needed Double click Fluent

14 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Starting Fluent
• Whether you have been following the meshing
or the non-meshing option, you will now follow
the same steps for the rest of the tutorial
• Begin by double clicking on Setup to open the
Fluent Launcher panel

or

4 processes recommended for this workshop but you

may need to use fewer based on availability and
• If you have HPC licenses and a multicore license status.
processor, change the processing option from
Serial to Parallel, then click OK
– If parallel is not an option, serial will work fine
15 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Fluent GUI Overview
1. Ribbon
1.
2. Outline Tree
3. Task Page
5. 4. Graphics Toolbar
5. Graphics Window
6. Console

2. 3. 1. If you are enrolled in a class, you have seen basic GUI and graphics
4. operations in the instructor demonstration preceding this.
2. If you are not enrolled in a class or if you are enrolled in a class and
missed the instructor demonstration, it is recommended to watch the
6. optional video about the GUI that is included with the workshop files
(filename “M02-DemoVid-02.mp4”).

16 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Fluent Mouse Functionality

Click Workbench Defaults to make

the mouse behavior consistent
with Workbench (optional)
• Mouse button functionality for individual
buttons can be set from the Viewing tab
• The image shows the default settings for a 3D
model
• 2D defaults are slightly different

17 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Fluent Workflow: Ribbon

• The Ribbon is used to guide the basic Fluent workflow

• The four primary tabs used in every simulation are

– Setting Up Domain
– Setting Up Physics
– Solving
– Postprocessing

• For this case (and probably most other cases too), you will use them going in
order from left to right

18 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Setting Up Domain: Mesh Check
• In the Setting Up Domain tab, in the
Mesh group, click Check and
examine the output in the Console

The mesh check ensures that each cell is in a

correct format and connected to other cells as
expected. It is recommended to check every
mesh immediately after reading it. Failure of any
check indicates a badly formed or corrupted
mesh which will need repairs prior to simulation.
You only have to look for error messages in the output.
If “Done” appears, as it does here, without any errors
or warnings, the mesh check was successful.
19 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Setting Up Domain: Mesh Quality
• In the Setting Up Domain tab, in the
Mesh group, click Quality and
examine the output in the Console
20 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
Mesh quality is very important for getting a converged,
accurate solution. The worst cells will have an orthogonal
quality closer to 0, with the best cells closer to 1.
Ideally, the minimum orthogonal quality for all types of cells
should be more than 0.1, with an average value that is
significantly higher (0.2), but sometimes it is possible for the
minimum to be as low as 0.01 (Source: ANSYS Fluent User’s
Guide).
The maximum aspect ratio is 36.8, which is high, but
acceptable in inflation layers. If the mesh quality is
unacceptable it is best to remesh before proceeding. There are
other possible remedies in Fluent, such as conversion to
polyhedral cells.
 Setting Up Physics

• Remember, the Ribbon is used to guide the basic Fluent workflow

• The four primary tabs used in every simulation are

– Setting Up Domain
– Setting Up Physics
– Solving
– Postprocessing

• You normally go through them from left to right – click the Setting Up Physics
tab in the Ribbon
• In Setting Up Physics, you will almost always need to provide input or make
choices for entries in the Solver, Model, Materials and Zones sections
21 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Setting Up Physics: Solver and Models

• The default settings in Solver are Time = Steady and Type = Pressure-Based.
– Use these settings for this tutorial

• Also keep the default settings for Models

– Important model settings will be explained later on, but defaults are suitable for this problem

22 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Setting Up Physics: Materials

• Click on Create/Edit… in the Materials section

• This will open the Materials panel

– The default material is air, so no changes are needed
• The properties correspond to atmospheric pressure
and 15° C (59° F)
– If you were simulating a gas other than air, or water, or
some other liquid, it would have to be defined using
this panel, which you will learn in one of the later
workshops
– Click Close to close the panel.

23 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Setting Up Physics: Zones

• In Fluent, the cells in the mesh are grouped into one or more cell zones
• Each cell zone is bounded by one or more boundary zones
• You will define boundary conditions for boundaries and cell zone conditions for
cell zones
• Default cell zone settings apply for this problem – you will learn about defining
cell zone conditions in other workshops
• Boundary conditions need to be defined
– Click Boundaries to bring up the Task Page for Boundary Conditions
• (continued on the next page)

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 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions (1)
• Clicking on Boundaries in the Ribbon (previous page)
opens the Boundary Conditions task page
• There are six zones listed
– inlet, outlet1, outlet2, and outlet3 come from the Named
Selections defined in Meshing
– Any surfaces that were not assigned to a named selection are
treated as walls in Fluent and given a default name (here
“wall-1”)
– The other zone in the list, interior-zone1, is the collection of
all the internal faces of all the mesh cells
• Fluent needs this for its internal data structure but no condition is
applied on these faces
• You will have zones such as this in all your Fluent models and can
simply ignore them
• Select inlet in the list and click Edit…
– Or just double click on the name
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 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions (2)
• Enter a value of 0.702 m/s for the velocity
– This corresponds to a flow rate of 3 lpm (see
appendix)
• Click OK to close the panel
• Select outlet1 in the Boundary Conditions
Task Page (not shown) and click Edit…
• Note that the default setting for outlets is
Gauge Pressure = 0
– By coincidence, this is the desired value for this
problem, so just click OK to close the panel

26 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Setting Up Physics: Boundary Conditions (3)
• Three boundary zones remain
– In this problem, outlet2 and outlet3 have the same
boundary condition as outlet1
• On the previous page, we saw that this happens to be
the default value, and since it is the default you do
not have to visit the panels for these boundaries
– The default boundary condition for walls in Fluent is
the no-slip condition
• Most of the time it is not necessary to open wall
boundary conditions panels unless you are solving for
heat transfer
– Therefore, all the necessary boundary conditions have
been defined and it is time to solve the problem

27 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Solving

• Remember, you are using the Ribbon to guide the workflow

• The four primary tabs used in every simulation are

– Setting Up Domain
– Setting Up Physics
– Solving
– Postprocessing

• You normally go through them from left to right, so now click the Solving tab
• In Solving, you will first create a report definition to help monitor the solution
progress, then initialize and calculate the solution

28 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Solving: Report Definition

• In the Solving tab, click on Definitions in the

Reports section and choose New > Surface Report
> Volume Flow Rate
Enter the following in the
definition panel:

Name = volume-flow-outlets
Surfaces = all three outlets Per
Surface = check
Report File = check
Report Plot = check

Click OK to finalize the report

definition

Multiple selections in Fluent panels do not require use of the Ctrl key
29 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Solving: Residuals and Report Definitions

• You will soon see that by default Fluent plots values of

the residuals, which are indications of errors in the
current solution
• Residuals should decrease during the calculation and
there are guidelines on the level of reduction needed
for the solution to be considered converged
– This will be covered in the class – defaults work fine for the majority
of cases and will be used here

• It is also recommended to observe other important

solution quantities, which is the role of Report
Definitions
– We are interested in the flow distribution, so for this problem it
makes sense to check the flow rate at the outlets
– We want to see that the values have stopped changing by the time
the residuals converge

30 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Solving: Initialize and Calculate

1. 2. 3.
1. Click Initialize
– The iterative method used by Fluent to calculate the flow solution requires each of the cells to be
assigned an initial value for all solution variables, which is what Initialize does
– The message appearing in the Console is only a warning, not an error, and it is safe to continue
2. Click Check Case
– The case check function is not required but it can provide useful suggestions about case setup
when you are first learning Fluent
– Best practices were followed in setting up this case so there is nothing to report and the
information panel can be closed
3. Set the number of iterations to 600 and click Calculate
31 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Solving: Solution
• Right click on the window tab and
choose SubWindow View to show both
the residuals and the report definition
plot

– You can do this while the solution is

iterating
– If you want to go back, just right click and
select Tabbed View
• The iterations will automatically stop In some models, due to the nature of the iterative solution
when the residuals reach convergence method, the residuals can reach the default convergence level
before the solution values become constant. This is undesirable
• Notice in the plot on the right that the
and later in the course you will learn what to do if that happens.
volume flow rates have reached a
Here everything looks good.
constant value
• Go to File > Save Project
32 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Postprocessing

• Remember, use the Ribbon to guide your workflow

• The four primary tabs used in every simulation are

– Setting Up Domain
– Setting Up Physics
– Solving
– Postprocessing
• You have been going through them from left to right, so now click the
Postprocessing tab
• In Postprocessing, you will check for conservation of mass, view the flow
pathlines, and check whether the flow is distributed uniformly between the
three outlets
33 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Postprocessing: Reports

• In the Reports section, click on

Fluxes
• Select the Mass Flow Rate
option
• Select the inlet and three
outlets in the list of boundaries
• Click Compute
In the Flux Reports panel, a positive value of mass flow rate means that flow enters the domain and a
negative value means it leaves the domain. Therefore, according to conservation of mass, if the values from
all inlets and outlets are added together, they should sum to zero. Due to the nature of the numerical
method, the Net Results value will never be exactly zero, but it should be small compared to the inlet value.
Here it is .00002%, which is practically zero. The normal expectation is that it should be less than 1%.
34 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Postprocessing: Flow Distribution

• The flux reports section on the previous slide showed the following
Boundary Mass Flow Rate (kg/s)
inlet 6.027E-05
outlet1 1.621E-05
outlet2 2.042E-05
outlet3 2.364E-05
• The inlet flow rate is 6.03E-5 kg/s so if the flow were uniformly distributed between
each of the three outlets, the flow rate at each outlet would be 2.01E-05 kg/s
Outlet Deviation from Uniform Flow (%)
outlet1 -19.3
outlet2 1.6
outlet3 17.7

• There is a significant difference between the flow rate through outlet1 and outlet3

35 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Postprocessing: Flow Pathlines

• In the Graphics section, click

Pathlines and New…
• In the Pathlines panel, select
inlet for the release surface
and color by Time instead of
Particle ID
– Color by time can sometimes help in
identifying recirculation zones

• Click Save/Display and then

Close
36 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Postprocessing: Flow Pathlines

• Pathlines appear in the

graphics window after
Save/Display was clicked
• The display can be improved to
make a more appealing and
easier to understand image
• This can be done by combining
the pathlines with the
geometry (next page)

Remember you can toggle the graphics between tabbed

view and sub-window view by right clicking on the title bar
of the tab or the window.

37 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Postprocessing: Mesh Display

• In the Graphics section of the Postprocessing tab,

select Mesh and then New…
• Under Options, unselect Edges such that only Faces
are checked, and then select all surfaces except the
interior zone By unselecting Edges, you are instructing the Mesh
• Click Save/Display and then Close Display to display only the faces of the geometry. When
edges are selected, it will also display the mesh lines.

38 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Postprocessing: Scene

• The geometry is displayed in the window

• To add transparency to the faces, double click
Scene in the Tree
• In the Scene panel, select the mesh object, set
Transparency to 80 and click Save & Display
– It does not have to be exactly 80, just something
reasonably close, or even experiment with different
values
39 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Postprocessing: Scene With Pathlines

• The geometry is now transparent

• In the tree, click the arrow next to
Graphics so more options can be seen
• Click the arrow next to Pathlines
• Right-click on pathlines-1 and select Add
to graphics
40 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Postprocessing: Summary
• Using mesh display and
scene to add the geometry
to the graphics makes the
flow pathlines easier to
interpret
• The inlet flow mostly
bypasses outlet1 and feeds
directly into outlet3, which
is probably the reason for
the non-uniform flow
distribution

41 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Summary
In this tutorial you have learned the basic steps for CFD analysis with ANSYS Fluent
• Start with a CAD file of your geometry
– This geometry must be the fluid volume
• Create a Fluid Flow Analysis System in Workbench and right click on the Geometry cell to import
your CAD file
– Alternatively, it is also possible to open the geometry cell and create your own geometry and it is strongly recommended to take
the Introduction to ANSYS SpaceClaim Direct Modeler training to learn how to do geometry creation with ANSYS software
• Double click on the Mesh cell to open Meshing
– Add named selections for important boundaries such as inlets and outlets and generate the mesh
– Close Meshing
– Introduction to ANSYS Meshing training course is strongly recommended so you will learn how to create a quality
mesh for CFD. This workshop only covered the bare minimum steps.
• In Workbench, right click on the Mesh cell in the analysis system and choose Update
– An alternate procedure was also described in case you do not yet know how to use Meshing
– A mesh file (.msh or .msh.gz) is required for the alternate procedure (remember to do CFD, you need a mesh)
• Double click Setup to open the Fluent launcher and start Fluent
42 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Summary
Once you have launched Fluent, use the Ribbon to guide the workflow of your
Fluent session. In almost every session, you use 4 main tabs going from left to
right:
1. Setting Up Domain 3. Solving
• Mesh Check and Mesh Quality • Create one or more report definitions to
monitor solution variables
2. Setting Up Physics • Initialize the solution
• Solver (defaults used for most problems) • Enter the number of iterations and calculate
• Models (defaults used here, this topic will be
covered further in other workshops) 4. Postprocessing
• Materials (here using default fluid air, later • Use Report Fluxes to check mass balance
you will learn how to use and define other (additional reporting covered in other
gases, liquids and solid materials) workshops)
• Cell zone conditions (default used here, this • Use Pathlines for flow visualization (additional
topic will be covered in other workshops) visualization covered later)
• Boundary conditions (set inlet velocity, used • Add geometry to display to facilitate
default values for outlet and walls) understanding
43 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Summary: Goals and Results

• The purpose of this simulation was to determine whether a particular manifold

design would achieve the design goal of equal flow distribution between its
three outlets
• After the solution was converged, the Flux Reports panel was used to check the
flow rate through each of the outlets
– The results showed that for this design, there was significant variation in the flow rate at each
outlet
• The use of pathlines to visualize the flow helped to provide insight to the root
cause of the non-uniform distribution in this design
– Much of the flow entering the manifold passes over the openings for the first two outlets and
goes directly into outlet3
• This effect should be reduced in order to be able to achieve the design goal of uniform flow
at each outlet
44 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Additional exercise (optional)

• Completing all the slides to this point is all that is required for Workshop 1
• (Optional) In case you finish ahead of time, you can repeat the steps, this time
using a modified manifold design
– The objective is to see if the design modification improves the uniformity of the flow
distribution
• Only do this if you have extra time
• There are instructions for both meshing and non-meshing options

45 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 (Optional) Modified Geometry and Operating Conditions

Air supplied to
inlet at 3 liters
per minute

3 outlets @ gauge pressure = 0 Pa

46 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Optional Exercise: Workbench
1. Open the Workbench project,
double click on Fluid Flow
(Fluent) below cell A and
rename it “base design”
2. Under Analysis Systems,
double click Fluid Flow
(Fluent) to add a second
Fluent analysis system 1.
This applies to both options,
meshing or non-meshing 2.

47 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Option 1 – Meshing Option

• You will perform the following steps

– Import CAD
– Assign Named Selections
– Generate Mesh
– Start Fluent
– Follow the instructions beginning on Page 8, but
replace the geometry file “base-design.stp” with
“mod-design.stp” from the workshop input files

• For Option 2 – Non-Meshing Option,

skip ahead to next page

48 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Option 2 - Non-Meshing Option: Load Mesh

1. Copy the file mod-design.msh from the

workshop input files to the folder where you
saved the Workbench project (not shown)

3. After browsing to folder, change

selection filter to FLUENT Mesh File
and select mod-design.msh. Click
OK when prompted
4. Go to Page 16 and follow the
instructions to set up and solve the
2. Right click on Setup and choose Import problem
Fluent Case, then Browse
49 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Postprocessing: Reports

• In the Reports section, click on

Fluxes
• Select the Mass Flow Rate
option
• Select the inlet and three
outlets in the list of boundaries
• Click Compute
• The net value represents an
imbalance of 8.7E-04 %,
indicating that a good mass
balance has been achieved
50 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Postprocessing: Flow Distribution

• The flux reports section on the previous slide showed the following
Boundary Mass Flow Rate (kg/s)
inlet 6.03E-05
outlet1 1.98E-05
outlet2 2.05E-05
outlet3 2.00E-05

• The inlet flow rate is 6.03E-5 kg/s so if the flow were uniformly distributed between
each of the three outlets, the flow rate at each outlet would be 2.01E-05 kg/s
Outlet Deviation from Uniform Flow (%)
outlet1 -1.5
outlet2 2.0
outlet3 -0.5

• The maximum deviation from uniform flow is only 2%

– The modified design achieves much improved uniformity of flow distribution between the outlets

51 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Postprocessing: Flow Pathlines

• Display flow pathlines using the

same procedure as the main part
of the tutorial
– If necessary, review pages 37-43

• The pathlines show that there is

still some bypassing of the first
inlet (note that the colors indicate
higher times than the colors in
the other two outlets because
part of the flow is coming from
the recirculation in the upper left
corner) but it does not result in
significant maldistribution

52 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Additional exercise (optional)

• If you completed the first additional exercise, there is actually a slightly more
efficient way that it could have been done
– The reason for not doing it in the slightly more efficient way was to gain more practice and familiarity
with the step-by-step process for setting up and solving problems in Fluent
– The slightly more efficient way involves using Workbench functionality that allows you to re-use the
Fluent setup

• (Optional) If you still have time, try this too

• There are instructions for both meshing and non-meshing options
– You will still use either “mod-design.stp” or “mod-design.msh”

53 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Option 1 – Meshing Option

• You will perform the following steps

– Create a duplicate of the Fluent system for the base
design
– Replace Geometry in the duplicate system
– Update the Mesh cell
– Start Fluent and inspect the resulting setup

• For Option 2 – Non-Meshing Option,

skip ahead to Page 60

54 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Create Duplicate Cell

1.
2.

1. Right click on Fluid Flow (Fluent) and select

Duplicate 3.
2. In the duplicate system, right click on Geometry
(B2), select Replace Geometry and select “mod-
design.stp”
3. Right click on Mesh (B3) and select Update
55 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Launch Fluent

• Double click Setup (B4) to launch Fluent and

choose Yes when prompted

• In Fluent, note that some of the boundaries

are not assigned to the correct faces
– This needs to be fixed before proceeding so go to File > Close
Without Save and choose Yes when asked whether to exit
without saving changes

56 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Launch Meshing

• Return to Workbench and launch Meshing in

the duplicate system
• In Meshing, select the Named Selections in
the outline and note that they have been
assigned incorrectly
– This can happen because there it not a one-to-one
correspondence between the internal ordering of the
surfaces in the CAD file used to replace the geometry
and the CAD file from the original geometry
– This is not uncommon when replacing geometry in this
way
• Re-assign the Named Selections to the
correct faces (not shown), click Generate
Mesh, then exit Meshing and return to
Workbench
– Note that the other inputs that were assigned on Page
11 are unchanged, so all that needed to be done was to
fix the named selections

57 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Inspect Fluent Setup

• Right click the Meshing cell to

update it and then launch
Fluent
• Note that the boundaries are
correct
• Open the boundary conditions
panel for the inlet and the
report definition
– All settings are the same as before
– All you have to do is initialize and
calculate, no repeat necessary for the
setup operations

58 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Option 2 – Non-Meshing Option

• You will perform the following steps

– Create a duplicate of the Fluent system for the base
design
– Start Fluent and replace the mesh

59 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Create Duplicate Cell

1.
2.

1. Right click on Fluid Flow (Fluent) and select

Duplicate
2. In the duplicate system, double click Setup (B2)
and launch Fluent

60 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Replace Mesh and Inspect Fluent Setup

• In the Setting Up Domain tab, select Replace Mesh…

• Select Yes to proceed
– This is saying that if the setup cell was linked to an upstream
component in the Project Schematic, the mesh replacement
would not be automatically performed if the linked upstream
component was to be updated – instead you would have to do it
manually
– There is no linked upstream component here so once the mesh is
replaced, the setup cell will always use the new mesh
• Select “mod-design.msh” from the panel and redisplay
the mesh once it has finished loading
• Inspect the inlet boundary condition and report
definition in Fluent, as on Page 59
– All settings and material properties are retained and all boundary
and cell zone conditions are applied as long as the zone name
matches so all you have to do here is initialize and calculate
61 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019
 Appendix

62 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019

 Flow Rate Hand Calculations
Geometry

Inlet Feed Diameter 0.375 inches

0.00953 meters
Inlet Feed Area 7.13E-05 square meters

Operating Conditions

Flow Rate 3 liters per minute

0.00005 cubic meters per second
Velocity (= Flow Rate / Inlet Feed Area) 7.02E-01 meters per second

63 © 2017 ANSYS, Inc. April 5, 2019