centrifugal pump, advice required
 

Hello all,

I am trying to model a centrifugal pump in ANSYS Fluent.

I have the impeller and casing modeled in Solidworks as you can see below:

http://www.mediafire.com/conv/f4b8fc...34008a726g.jpg

I really need general advice as this my first such task. Probably answer to below questions would be helpful:

1- I have made a circular pattern of complete pump and cut as seen above to reduce the size of geometry. My plan is have periodic boundary condition in the sides (cutting plane). Is this the way forward for this or something else can be done?
2- I can create only surface model of impeller (rather than body) and walls and periodic boundaries as well as create surfaces for inlet and outlet and export these surface model to ICEM. Is this right or I should keep the bodies?

3- How I should define rotation of impeller and also axis of rotation. Is there something to do in ICEM?

Thanks.

Hi, it's a while since I did this but I vaguely remember:
1 - Yes, you can set up the periodics in your grid genaration, when you check the case in Fluent it should report what it things the angle is and you should easily be able to check if this equates to the correct number of sections.
2 - Surfaces only should be fine in Fluent I think (try it and see I guess!)
3 - You can define this in Fluent, you can choose to set an axis of rotation and the speed in the same menu as where you find the boundary conditions I think. I certainly never did it in my grid generation but in Fluent.
Mike