[EphemeralMemory]

Hey, all, I have a problem with Ansys 12.1: specifically, I don't know how to go from a surface mesh imported from a .stl file to a volumetric mesh.

I used to use Gambit, and in that program, you would delete the virtual geometry, and convert the points to real, then re-mesh it. I'm not quite sure how to do it from a .stl file to a volumetric mesh in the new Ansys, does anyone know?

The tutorials were less than useless. I've been tinkering with it for a few days, but nothing as of yet is solved.

Thanks for any advice in advacne

[sac]

Currently ANSYS Meshing does not support stl imports to get a volumetric mesh.

You're better off using Gambit, ICEM or TGRID currently for this if you have licenses for them at the moment.

You can use FEModeler to import the stl file but unless that has a volume associated with it when you skin it to bring it into meshing it will just recognise it as surface body and therefore you cannot get a volume mesh.

[PSYMN]

Sac is right... However at 13.0, ANSYS meshing does support STL data.

[EphemeralMemory]

Thanks to you both. I looked through a tutorial for ICEM CFD, but can you offer any advice for the same problem? I can import the STL just fine with ICEM CFD.

[PSYMN]

If you have access to ICEM CFD, you can import the STL file as geometry and then Edit=> facets to mesh, Or you could go the other way, import Mesh => STL and then convert Mesh to Facets if you also want the geometry...

If the mesh is good enough to mesh from (decent quality triangles forming a closed "water tight" volume, you can use one of the bottom up tetra methods such as Delaunay (TGLib with AF) or Advancing front (aka the GE mesher or CFX mesher). These will mesh to give you a tetra volume directly from the imported triangle mesh.

If the facets are bad or not connected (as is common with STL), you shoud throw away the mesh and just use the Patch Independent Octree Tetra method to generate your new Tetra mesh (or just a PI tri surface mesh and fill with the delaunay method).

Hope this helps...

[arezou]

Hello,

I have complex geometry which is a stl file I can imported into as a geometry into a ICEM and then start mesh it. I was wondering if this meshing is going to be accurate and how can I mesh it? is it going to be volumetric meshing? or should I first convert my file into CAD and them mesh it. Thanks.

[Shaheer]

Hello I have a stl file and i want to mesh the cavity is there a process i can do it since my work is to do with the fluid flow.