Smoothing options
 

Hi,

In ANSYS Meshing (AM) there is an option: Outline > Mesh > Sizing > Smoothing. There are 3 choices for the smoothing: Low, Medium and High.

Since alot of the AM technology has been developed from ICEM CFD how does the AM smoothing feature compare? In ICEM you can choose what element types, smoothing level, smoothing algorithm (Laplace or not) and so on. Whereas, in AM smoothing is limited those 3 names.

Does anyone know what AM is doing in the smoothing (the User Guide does not say) compared to ICEM? I've have tried all 3 and can see an improvement in a mesh but it would be good to get an idea of what's going on, especially when ICEM gives so many choices.

Thanks

I am not directly involved with that technology in ANSYS Meshing, but I can tell you that it is not an ICEM CFD algorithm...

There are actual numbers behind the scenes, I forget what they are, but setting those simplified settings such as "medium" sets a bunch of smoother settings and off it goes.

They meant it to be simple, but instead it comes across as mysterious. I think there are plans to be more transparent in a future version.

I think they have plans to fix it in future versions, but in the mean time, I will put in a request for better doc.

Hello! I'm with the same doubt... Did you find the answer ? My grid is also getting better when setting soothing=high, but I want to understand what is happening.

Hello Guilherme,

In Ansys Meshing, smoothing attempts to improve element quality by moving locations of nodes with respect to surrounding nodes and elements. The low, medium, or high option controls the number of smoothing iterations along with the threshold metric where the mesher will start smoothing.

You can also change the number of smoothing iterations (between 1-20), by default it is 5.