Symmetry conditon Error in CFX with hex mesh generated by ICEM CFD
 

Hi,

I encountered a error when start simulation with CFX. This error's description said that 'the mesh face set to a symmetry condition should be a plane or a axis, but my mesh face is not in a plane.'

This is really confused me, the mesh is generated by ICEM CFD with block method, all hex bricks. But how can the mesh on a certain face is not in a plane?

Can you help me with this? Please give any comments or whatever about this, thanks a lot.

Hi,
when you define a block you usually need a geometry to be glued to it. then you need to move the verticle to the extremity of your geometric plane...
But even with all this some mistakes can occur during the meshing step if your mesh is a little to coarse...

The best thing to do is to specify a larger tolerance inside CFX-Pre by
right-click on solver
insert => expert parameter
Discretization panel (the first one)
activate vector parallel tolerance and set a value of 5 (for instance)
(you can check in CFX Help to have more explanation of this parameter)
re-run your case

it will decrease the tolerance of CFX to consider some surface as a plane

I wouldn't do this. Instead I would invest time tidying your mesh.

A good quality mesh, with edges appropriately assigned to curves, faces to surfaces etc can really enhance your mesh, and hence solution.

You should use expert parameters as a last resort. Fixing your mesh is the first resort.

Your mesh issues your having can be signs of other underlying mesh issues.

+1 for Mr CFD.

Don't patch over the problem by allowing a larger tolerance - the tolerance is there for a reason. It is bound to cause other errors as well. Fix the root cause as Mr CFD says.

Thanks a lot, you all, really appreciate your comments all:).

I have assigned all edges to curves from memory, but maybe there are still some other lines, faces or vertexes not been well associated. I'll have a good check in ICEM CFD.

And can I find this mesh problem in ICEM CFD? with some certain mesh check method? Because I want to find this problem early, not to find this until do CFX simulation. I do mesh at home and then do simulation in my office ,so I want find this at home, then to modify.\

Thank you all.

Yes, in ICEM go to:
1) Edit Mesh tab
2) Check Mesh icon (it's the green box with a tick)
3) Check your mesh for all errors and possible problems.

The best thing to do is ask in the ICEM forums. They're more knowledgeable about these things than I am.

Make sure you associate your vertices to points, edges to curves, faces to surfaces etc. If you then snap project vertices and then update sizes in pre-mesh params then I think you should be fine.

Thanks a lot for your all help.

End up with that I involved 2 face into 1 symmetry condition before, that's the problem, obviously the mesh face not lie in one single plane.
Because I was used to deal with symmetry boundary condition in CFX with mesh from internal mesh module, there is no problem when 2 face in one symmetry condition, BCZ CFX knows that the two faces are symmetry face respectively.

Thank you all.
Mason:)

Hey Mason,

I am facing the same issue as you did. How did you figure out that you assigned faces wrong?

Thank you :)

Simple to fix in ICEM.

From CFX you should know the plane that is giving you trouble. Go back into ICEM and into "Edit Mesh"

Move nodes on your sym plane. You can snap them to a uniform plane location.

I am assuming you dont have gross errors in your mesh build and this is just a result of a small offset of node(s) on the offending plane(s).