Tips & Tricks

Using the BC/VC Queries tool in CFD-GEOM

Have you ever whished that you could blank/unblank or pick/unpick only interfaces in a CFD-GEOM model? You can now with the BC/VC Queries tool. This tool allows you to pick, unpick, blank or unblank all the interfaces of the current model based on the interface type (Fluid/Fluid, Fluid/Solid, etc.).

Visualizing particle size effect on Spray particle trajectory

When analyzing flow vectors, one can get a general trend of the direction of the flow and locations of recirculation. But what if you need to specifically know where a particle will end up? Maybe release points need to be studied. Then, the size and mass can make a difference in the path a particle travels.

Surface mesh coarsening option for Shrink-Wrapped meshes

When generating a shrink-wrapped surface mesh, one could end up with a large number of faces (triangles) in an attempt to capture small features. The Mesh Decimation tool in CFD-VisCART allows the user to reduce the number of faces without losing features preserved during the skrink-wrapping process.

How to create Pyramid cells on structured-unstructured domain interfaces in CFD-GEOM

CFD-GEOM can be used to construct a variety of cell shapes: quadrilaterals (2D) and hexahedrals (3D) for structured meshes; triangles (2D) as well as tetrahedrals and polyhedral/honeycomb (3D) for unstructured meshes; prisms and pyramids (3D) for semi-structured meshes.

CFD-FASTRAN/CFD-ACE+ coupling for thermal environment simulations

In certain applications, different regions of the computational domain experiences flow conditions that are so different that it is very difficult for a single solver to produce accurate results at the extremes. In many situations, such problems can be separated and solved using loosely coupled solvers. Each solver is chosen to provide highly accurate solutions for the prevailing flow conditions.

How to check what software version you are running

There is a very fast and easy way to verify what software version you are running for your ESI CFD applications. You most likely know that this information is available for the GUI by clicking on 'Help → About ...', and for solvers by looking in the output file.

New Exposed Boundaries Visualization tool in CFD-GEOM

One of the various new features introduced in CFD-GEOM V2009.2 is the ‘Exposed Boundaries’ visualization tool. This tool allows users to quickly visualize those areas where closure problems remain in an otherwise closed and “watertight” model.

Using Macros in CFD-VIEW

In some cases, you might have to perform the same task several times to post-process your results in CFD-VIEW. This can happen for example when you are running a parametric study and need to extract the same information from all the solution files. In this case, it might be time-saving to use the Macro option of CFD-VIEW, especially if obtaining the information necessitates many operations.

Repairing Imported CAD Geometries in CFD-GEOM

In most cases, importing CAD files in CFD-GEOM results in a clean geometry that can be directly used for further processing and/or meshing. However, for complex models, it is possible that the imported geometry has missing, untrimmed or defective surfaces that need to be manually repaired.

Cell Size Growth Control in CFD-VisCART

In CFD-VisCART, the Cartesian cells can split or grow by a minimum factor of 2 because of the intrinsic cartesian-cell-splitting algorithm. Due to this, in some cases, there is a chance that the mesh could grow from dense (at the wall) to coarse (away from the wall) within a short distance.