[scottimus]

I have spent some time getting familiar with Fluent and Solidworks. I really enjoy the way I can create assemblies in Solidworks. Unfortunately the only way I have heard of using solidworks in fluent through ANSYS is to create the flow path geometry and not that of the actual solid structure and use that in Fluent.
My question:
Can you model the solid geometry in Solidworks and then define the system in some way so that Fluent can identify where the fluid flows without 'filling in' the solid parts in solidworks or creating the a fore mentioned inversion of modeling the fluid path?

Simple Example to what I am refering:
Flow in a pipe. I model the actual solid pipe in Solidworks then import that into Fluent and through some magic allow fluent to recognize that the pipe will be filled with fluid.

Thank you for your time! I really appreciate your efforts.

[LuckyTran]

Answer is no, there is no magic.

What you can do, and this does not take too much effort, is to utilize SolidWork's mold capabilities to generate a mold of the solid part (which is essentially the flow path). Then import the mold into Fluent. In other words, you need to do the "filling in" part in solidworks. If you use the mold capability of Solidworks using this method, then you can save yourself the effort of manually creating the flow geometry.

I have done this many times with all sorts of geometries (with 200+ solid/fluid interfaces). Practice on a simple geometry first to get the hang of it (a pipe). Pipe should only take a few seconds to perform, if you already know the steps.

Give it a try, it is not too difficult and worth the effort to learn.

[scottimus]

That seems like a good solution to me. Thank you for your advice. I'll be sure to give it a go so I can stop needing to think inside out

[scottimus]

Although I have found Solidworks superb for creating the fluid flows, what is considered a better tool to use when it comes to carrying out the rest of the fluent analysis, from meshing to solution.

The kind of answer I am looking for is 'what do the pros use to get their work done'? in other words, Although I find solidworks easy to work with, would it be better to get comfortable doing everything in ansys design modeler.

[sundhars]

design modeler is the best tool for extracting fluid region out of a model, as far as i know. create an enclosure and use boolean-->subtract option to extract the fluid region. then you can chop off the unnecessary fluid regions using slice option. Fill is another option used for the same purpose. you can choose based on your geometry.

[scottimus]

Thank you!