Automation in Fluent
 

I'm extremely new to Ansys. I'm doing summer research and have just been introduced to it. My task is to create a flying wing shaped UAV in SolidWorks (done), and then to somehow automate a lift and drag curve for various angles of attack. I know how to do this manually, but the idea is to automate the whole process. Does anyone know of a way to do this? Maybe a macro? If so, could you point me in the right direction to get started?

This program needs to open up my geometry in Ansys, freeze it, create an enclosure (wind tunnel), create a Boolean subtracting the uav from the enclosure, make a general mesh, run it through the solver (with all the little settings to go with it) to find the lift and drag, then repeat by going back to the geometry and rotating the UAV a few degrees and going through the same process after that.

Help!

Also, any and all responses welcome. I don't even know if this is possible.

Hi,

You could try to use Ansys Workbench for that, making all design points you need. The input parameter that you need for your design points is your angle of attack. Remember to save data of all design points.

Hope this help you. If you have any doubt tell me ;)

Why do you need to go back and rotate the airfoil each time for each angle of attack. Just create a circular enclosure around the airfoil and work on getting a decent mesh. For the angle of attack change just change the fluid direction in the CFD package.

I would be concerned about automating the process as the mesh needs to be good and you may not get what is needed for a good solution.

If the goal is to automate the work, Ansys Workbench is the option and you would have to change the angle geometry since fluid components can not be parameterized. It has to take care in obtaining a good mesh resolution in all possible wake zones. A spheric domain is no needed since it would result in a waste of cells that could be better work in zone with higher gradients.

It sounds like you're saying that workbench already has a feature like this! That would be amazing. Could you explain it a little more thoroughly? The only thing on Ansys I've played with is Fluid Flow (Fluent). And forgive me for the dumb question, but what do you mean by "making all the design points you need"? Is that just making sure the geometry is set in the way you want it?

I've been doing some research, so you can probably disregard that second post of mine. However, I've made 8 design points and when I try to update them, I get an error that says "The Setup component in Fluid Flow for design point 0 requires user input before it can be updated." What does this mean? I've done the mesh and the set up.

My input is angle of attack. My outputs are lift and drag forces.

Hi,

did you solve the first design point? Try to solve the first one (set up in Fluent, initialize and converge it). If no data or criterion for solving in Fluent is given, workbench can't know when it has to stop iterating... I thing this could be the problem. So try to solve the first case, and then update all other design points

That worked like a charm. You are a lifesaver, truly!

This might need to go into a different thread, but maybe you have some ideas.
My next task is to be able to do the following automatically. As in, click a button and have the following happen:
- build a geometry from an excel file (I can probably figure that out)
- import that into solid works to create a geometry
- import that geometry into ansys and have it in the wind tunnel set up
- run the coefficient curves (what I most recently did)
- run that geometry through a shape optimizer
- export that geometry to an excel file.

And repeat.

I'm mostly wondering if you have any idea about the automation of all of that. I'm hoping I can figure out the individual parts myself, but I'm completely lost on how to accomplish the automation. And we really need it to be automated because we plan on running hundreds of designs through this process.

I'm glad to help you with design points, but I have no idea in treating Excel files, sorry.. :( . It would be fine to open a new post with your doubt. But it have to be possible to treat Excel files since there is a component system in Ansys Worckbench called Microsoft Office Excel...
Otherwise, why not to create the geometry in Design Modeler? So, it would be better to open a new post ;)

Have you figured out the problem? Can you update the status of the work?