Newbie needing some help
 

Hi

I am a newbie to the CFD scene. My previous experience has been with dynamic FEA analysis using Hypermesh so I am looking to make the switch from the analysis of solids to fluids.

I am using ICEM for meshing and Fluent as the solver. I have done all the tutorials I can find in Hexa/Tetra for ICEM but still have a number of questions.

I tried to model a complex internal flowfield in 2d which struggled as a single surface. My idea was to then break it down into a number of seperate surfaces and then mesh each one and try to find a way to equivalence all the surfaces. However, when it was imported into Fluent, it put a line boundary between each surface. I was not blocking just surface meshing. What am I doing wrong?

Another thing, sometimes when I set the boundary conditions for fluid as fluid, it falls over when I try to import it into Fluent and it refuses to import the mesh?

Finally, my long term goal is to perform a CFD analysis of a boat. Can anyone steer me in the right direction of some good resources? Am I right in thinking that it has to be a VOF model?

Sorry it is so long and it is quite basic but I guess we all have to start somewhere.

Thanks

Ady

Hi Ady,

I've never used ICEM (I am a Gambit fan ;)) - maybe you can post the question about meshing in the meshing section of the forum?

For Fluent - the boundary conditions should be defined as inlet / outlet pressure, or flow rates, or things like that. The "fluid" part is the fluid domain (i.e. the volume considered). If that's what you did, maybe you've forgotten something about 2D/3D in fluent, or when you exported the mesh.
Have you done the Fluent tutorials?

Marion - who also started in dynamic FEA with hypermesh (car crash simulations) - I know what you're going through!