[CFD-Post] Using data from inserting a plane
 

Hi,

Is it possible to obtain data on a plane which is inserted using the Location Submenu? In particular, when a plane slices a mesh tetra element a triangle is formed on the plane. It is data at the nodes and centroid of this triangle that I'd like to use. The data is velocity components and Cartesian co-ordinates.

Also, is it possible to make a plane which has a specified area less than the extent of the domain boundaries? For example, if I have a cube shaped domain of 1m by 1m by 1m could I have a plane of size 0.1m by 0.1m? I've not had any luck in my attempts.

The reason for wanting these two features is to use the drag decomposition wake integration method detailed in the journal paper [1] to calculate the induced, profile and wave drag components of an aircraft. The induced drag is of most interest to me. Where as the forces in CFD-Post will only give pressure and shear stress suface integrated components.

Thanks,

[1], Giles & Cummings, Wake Integration for 3-D Flowfield Computations: Theoretical Development, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 36, No. 2, March-April, 1999.

When a plane slices through a mesh, in general it does not intersect any nodes, rather it passes through element edges. There's no data stored along an element edge (only at the nodes), so the best you are going to get is interpolated data based on the surrounding nodal data (which is what Post will be plotting). You can certainly export data on the plane, but it's not going to be nodal data from the solver.
To reduce the extent of the plane take a look at the Isoclip object in Post (version 12.0 or later).