Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on the modelling of the entire Francis turbine operation. Can anyone suggest any excellent mesh generation software, which can easily tackle the meshing of complex geometry? I always fail to create the mesh when it comes to a body with curved surface or sharp edge. I have to spend lots of time changing the goemetry in order to fit into the software. I hope you could recommend a better one for me. Any suggestions are extremely welcomed.

Thanks, pete

Pete:

I recommend checking out ICEM CFD. Definite leader in mesh generation market. Powerful mesher, extremely tolerant of imperfect geometry, works inside many CAD tools, and has countless mesh editing tools. http://www.icemcfd.com

cheers,

derrek

When it comes to complicated geometry like the whole turbine(But I do not think it is not that tough), as you know, there is no mesher that guarantees you good mesh, even with a tet mesher. If it's hexa, you should be smart to get quality mesh. Curved surface or sharp edge might not be a big issue if you use commercial software.

I've been using an excellent mesher for hex. If you need hex, please let me know.

-selina

Just prepare a testcase and send it to icem , gridpro and whatelse and compare the results.

Actually I have checked GS-Mesher(meshes only one subdomain), ProMesh(very fast, but when it doesn't work, almost no possibilities to change parameters) and ICEMCFD. I got stuck to ICEMCFD that turned out to be a quite flexible and cheap tool. You can change many parameters in order to control mesh quality. Although it is not very fast and the underlying Octree-approach has some problems fitting curved geometries, I really can recommend it. If you have access to the meshing-tool from ANSYS, try it . It should be also very powerful.

Anybody knows about a projection method? The projection method eliminates any problems caused by curvature of geometry or gap between surfaces. It positions face of mesh onto surfaces exactly. Mathematics!

If you are interested in, please check Truegrid - www.truegrid.com. The software has its own unique meshing market where accuracy matters such as defense industry. It has strong parametric capabilities not only for mesh quality but also for topology.

It is based on INGRID from LLNL.

-Paul

Hi Pete,

I am a member of NUMECA team, but have been using before, for a couple of years, competing meshing tools for Francis turbine configurations. When I turned to NUMECA tools, I was very pleased to see that these tools can provide you a fast and good solution, as you can combine an automated tool for blades configurations (AUTOGRID), and an interactive mesher with templates and scripts capabilities (IGG). In term of quality, a real advantage of these meshers concerns mesh continuity (expansion ratios), especially at blocks connections. There are several customers now for Francis turbine applications using NUMECA tools throughout the world, as could be seen in the latest User Meeting. Moreover, these tools evolve continuously at a fast pace.

I would suggest you to contact NUMECA through info@numeca.be (you can also mail me: remi.lestriez@numeca.be) and ask for a benchmark or more information.

Best regards,

Remi Lestriez Sales & Consulting Engineer NUMECA International

Hi Selina,

Can you please contact me via email....I can't get thru your hotmail add. Is your mesher a commercial software?

Thanks, pete

Hi andreas,

I currently don't have any experimental data to compare with and so the mesh independent solution is quite important in my case. Will ICEMCFD have a problem when the mesh is refined? Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for your info....I will try it as well.