Workshop 7d:

Assembly Meshing 16.0 Release

Introduction to ANSYS Meshing

© 2015 ANSYS, Inc. February 12, 2015 1 Release 16.0

 Introduction
Background
• This workshop will demonstrate the application of Assembly
Meshing to a CAD import assembly of parts.

Objectives
• Starting ANSYS Meshing
• Activating Assembly Meshing
• Creating a Material Point
• Creating a Virtual Body
• Inflation
• Defining a Fluid Surface
• Generating the Fluid Mesh

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 Project Startup
Create the Project
• Start Workbench.
– Start  All Programs  ANSYS 16.0 
Workbench 16.0
• Drag and drop a Mesh component system into the
Project Schematic .
• Right click on the Geometry cell (A2) and select
Import Geometry  Browse.
• Locate the file “mixer-t.stp” in the Meshing
workshops input files WS7d folder and select it. The
geometry cell will show a check mark indicating it is
up to date.
• Double click on the
Mesh Cell (A3) to
start Meshing.
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 Units

Set Units:
• In the Units menu set Metric (mm,
kg, N, s, mV, Ma)

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 Preparation
Planning
• This assembly consists of four solid bodies (representing
the solid pipe wall and flanges) and three surface bodies
(caps) that cap all the pipe entrances/exits.
– Note that the bodies do not form a single part (the
bodies are not connected). There is also no defined
fluid body.
• Assembly Meshing can generate fluid meshes on this
type of CAD import by providing a material point
(coordinates) within the volume occupied by the fluid.
The specification of a material point is used to create a
‘Virtual Body’ representing the fluid region.
• A conformal mesh can also be generated in and across
the solid parts.

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 Global Mesh Controls

Set Defaults and Activate Assembly Meshing

• In the Outline, select the Mesh object to display
Details of “Mesh”.
• In Details of “Mesh”, set the following under Defaults;
– Physics Preference: CFD.
– Solver Preference: Fluent.

• Under Assembly Meshing set;

– Method: CutCell.

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 Global Mesh Controls

Set Defaults and Activate Assembly

Meshing (Continued)
• Under Sizing check that Use Advanced Size
Function is set to On: Curvature.
– Note that when using Assembly Meshing
the Advanced Size Function cannot be
deactivated (must be set to one of four
options).

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 Material Point

Create a Coordinate System

• In the Outline, right click on Coordinate
Systems and select Insert  Coordinate
System from the Context Menu.
• In the Details View, activate the
Geometry Selection Box (click in the box
to the right of Geometry – Apply/Cancel
buttons will appear).
• Select the Body Selection Filter.

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 Material Point
Create a Coordinate System (Continued)
• Select the central solid body as shown (right) and apply the selection
in the Details View.
– A new coordinate system has been created using the centroid of
the selected body as origin coordinates.
– The Coordinate System is listed in the Outline, the origin
coordinates in the Details View and displayed in the Graphics
window.

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 Virtual Body

Create a Virtual Body

• In the Outline, right click on
Geometry and select Insert 
Virtual Body from the Context
Menu.

• In the Details View, click in the

Material Point box and select
the new coordinate system
from the drop down menu as
shown.

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 Global Mesh Controls
Mesh
• In the Outline, select the Mesh object to display Details
of “Mesh”.
• In Details of “Mesh”, under Assembly Meshing a new
option has appeared (Keep Solid Mesh).
– Set Keep Solid Mesh to Yes.
• This option appears in response to the presence of
a Virtual Body representing the flow region. In
such cases it is desirable to be able to choose
whether or not to generate a mesh on both fluid
and solid regions.
• Imported bodies can be defined as fluid/solid. In
the Outline click on any of the bodies and note the
Material assignment in the Details View.

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 Generate Mesh
Generate Initial Mesh
• Select the Mesh object in the Outline.
• Generate the mesh.

– A Number of Messages will be printed in the Message Box

prompting the user to check the mesh for geometric
accuracy.
• Note the feature capture failure (right).
• Poor feature capture can be fixed in a number of ways. The
simplest approach is to try refining the mesh in these
regions. In this case, since the mesh is quite coarse on all the
pipe faces, we will decrease the Global Curvature Normal
Angle. This will create smaller cells on all curved faces
including the problematic area.
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 Generate Mesh
Adjust Sizing and Generate Mesh
• In the Details View, under Sizing change
Curvature Normal Angle to 10.
• Generate the mesh.

• The new, more refined, mesh has eliminated the

previous feature capture problem.
– Note that warning messages may still appear
even if the mesh is acceptable in terms of
geometric feature capture.

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 Section Plane
View Mesh Interior • Select the Section Plane Tool.
• Right click in the graphics window and
select View  Front (corresponds to -Z). • Create a Section Plane by clicking,
dragging and releasing as shown vertically
down through the mesh.

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 Section Plane
View Mesh Interior (Continued)
• Set the view to isometric using the Iso Ball.

• Zoom in using the Box Zoom tool as shown.

• Note that the mesh between the parts is fully

conformal.
• In the Outline, select the Mesh object to
display Details of “Mesh” and, under Statistics,
set Mesh Metric to Orthogonal Quality.
• Orthogonal Quality is acceptable (above 0.05).

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 Mesh Metrics Graph
View Mesh Interior (Continued)
• Note that the Mesh Metrics Graph indicates that
the mesh contains different cell types.
– If the graph is not visible click the Metric Graph
button.

• You can see from the graph bars that, for each
range of quality, hexahedral cells are the most
prevalent (dark blue) followed by wedge cells
(green). Other cell types form only a small part of
the mesh.
• Switch the Metric Graph off using the Metric
Graph button.

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 Inflation
Add Automatic Inflation
• In the Details View, under Inflation set Use
Automatic Inflation to Program Controlled leaving
all other settings to the defaults as shown.
– In Assembly Meshing;
• When inflation is required on Virtual Bodies,
Automatic Program Controlled Inflation
must be used.
• Automatic Program Controlled Inflation will
create inflation in fluid bodies (Virtual
Bodies are fluid by default). Solid bodies will
contain no inflation.

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 Named Selections
Add Named Selections
• Click the Zoom to Fit button to restore the
view.

• Select Geometry in the Outline.

• Select the Face Selection Filter

• Select the face as shown.

• Right click and select Create Named Selection
from the Context Menu as shown

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 Named Selections
Add Named Selections (Continued) • Use the same procedure to create two
• In the Named Selection Dialog Box type more Named Selections (inlet-1 & inlet-2)
the name “outlet” as shown (below). for the faces shown below.

Inlet-1

Inlet-2

• Click OK.

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 Inflated Mesh
Generate Inflation Mesh
• RMB  Generate Mesh.
– In Assembly Meshing Inflation is a post volume mesh
procedure (the volume mesh will not be
regenerated).
• Select Mesh in the Outline to redisplay the new inflated
mesh.
• The Program Controlled Inflation has inflated into the
fluid region (Named Selections have been excluded).
– Additional messages warn that inflation will not be
carried out on sheet bodies or on defeatured
geometry.
• Check the Statistics in the Details View and confirm that
the Orthogonal Quality is still above 0.05.

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 Preparation

Planning
• In many cases we are only interested in generating a
mesh for the fluid region. We can use the ‘Keep Solid
Mesh’ option under Assembly Meshing in the Details
View to discard the solid mesh if required.
• However, this option will still initially generate the solid &
fluid body meshes. The solid mesh will simply be
discarded after this process. For small cases this is not a
problem but for larger cases this can become very
inefficient in terms of time.
• We can avoid this by defining which faces are ‘wetted’ by
the fluid before we generate the mesh with the ‘Keep
Solid Mesh’ option set to No.

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 Fluid (Wetted) Surfaces
Insert Fluid Surface
• In the Outline clear the existing mesh by right
clicking on Mesh and selecting Clear Generated
Data from the Context Menu.
• Expand Geometry then, under Geometry,
expand Virtual Body Group.
• Right click on Virtual Body and select Insert 
Fluid Surface from the Context Menu.

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 Fluid (Wetted) Surfaces
Insert Fluid Surface (Continued)
• In the Details View activate the Faces To Group
selection box.
• Select the eight faces as shown and apply the
selection (CTRL click to multiple select).
– The selected faces representing the Fluid
Surfaces will by colored blue/red.

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 Assembly Mesh Options

Solid Mesh Option

• In the Outline, select the Mesh object to display
Details of “Mesh”.
• Under Assembly Meshing, set Keep Solid Mesh to No.

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 Final Fluid Mesh

• Generate the Mesh.

• When the mesh is generated switch off the Section
Plane and view the final fluid mesh.
• In the Details View, under Statistics, confirm that the
final Orthogonal Quality is acceptable (above 0.05).

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 Save the Project

• This completes the workshop.

• From the main menu select File  Close Meshing
– Workbench will save any application data.

• From the Workbench Project Page use the file menu and save the
project as “AMWS7d.wbpj” to your working folder.

© 2015 ANSYS, Inc. February 12, 2015 26 Release 16.0