Cell Zones in fluent
 

Dear all,

my name is Tobias Holzmann and I am normally using OpenFOAM. However, a colleague has a meshing problem that I meshed with snappyHexMesh (FOAM mesher). Sofar so good, However, this mesh contains 4 regions. For me it is not possible to transform the information of the cellZones that I create during the meshing stage into fluent. It is lost after conversion to a fluent mesh. Now the question. Is it possible to define a cellZone in the actual mesh based on e.g. STL / STEP data inside Fluent? I think it should be possible, or not? Any suggestion of your expertise is welcomed.

Hello,
What you can try is open the mesh in ICEM and export it again.

Hmm okay but do you mean to create the cellZonrs in ICEM? Because in the msh file there is no information about cellZones after converting from foam mesh to fluent mesh.

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No if cell zone is already there it will be there in ICEM. Once you export that mesh form ICEM it will recognized by fluent aslo

The conversion from foam mesh to fluent mesh does not contain the information of the cell zones ... Thats why I ask. So I have to create the cellZones somehow different.

you can mesh the model using fluent mesh mode

Probably you need to revisit your foamMeshToFluent code. I know you are quite expert in OF, but did you give -writeZones after your converter command? If there is no cellzones in converted mesh, you can not create in Fluent. In ICEM you can create cellzones if it is simple to select.

Dear gjitmawa, your suggestion is nice but you may read my question. The reason why I was asking was due to the fact that:

• I don't know fluent and the mesher and how everything is working
• My colleague needed a good mesh for a more or less complex geometry but he was not able to mesh it with fluent (as he would like to have it - maybe he is not experienced enough but that does not matter)
• Therefore, he asked me if I can do it with FOAM
• I created the mesh in FOAM and wanted to convert it to fluent but the cellZones are not converted
• That's why I was asking if there is some solution or workarounds

@Carno. Thanks for your kind words and that you think that I have a big expertize in FOAM. However, I already checked the sources of foamMeshToFluent and unfortunately there is nothing included that treats the cellZones. Well, I was asking my colleague to make some simple fluent mesh with cellZones in order to check out the syntax of the *.msh file in order to enable implement the zone transformation. This was not possible because he always got binary files which I could not check out. Of course I gave him some suggestions from other people in »How to export ASCII files« but I did not get an ASCII file.

Well, the problem is solved now because he went back to the fluent mesher. So finally, there is no need for me to go deeper into the topic.

Thanks for all replies.

Another thing I thought is, just make regions instead of zones. Since Fluent seems do not make difference in zones and regions.
Anyways that problem is solved..

Dear Carno,

thanks for the hint. I did not check it because what we get after your command is like single-meshes and then the question would be, how can I convert it? For sure, I can convert each single region into a msh mesh but my colleague said that he need only "one" mesh file with all information. I even do not know if that is correct because I also expect FLUENT to be able to load 2 - 3 different "domains" and couple them. At last, he was also complaining that I have to make the "shadow" walls in a way that FLUENT recognize it itself. Don't know because I never used FLUENT. Just can trust his sentences (even if I do not want because there should be a way) :P

Hi

There are multible threads for this:
https://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/op...sh-fluent.html

foamToEnsightParts
 

Try foamToEnsightParts: Translates OpenFOAM data to Ensight format. An Ensight part is created for each cellZone and patch.

Ensight files can be imported in fluent with cellzones.

Cheers:
-Jay