Hybrid Meshes for CFD

Fluent Inc.any%> announces the release of significant upgrades to its FLUENT/UNS and RAMPANT CFD solvers and its Tgrid mesh generator. The new releases greatly expand the versatility of Fluent's established unstructured CFD software, especially in the important areas of model building and mesh generation. New features improve the quality of automatically generated meshes, ensuring greater accuracy from CFD results. They also enhance productivity by allowing designers to consider parametric changes using parts-based meshing. Companies worldwide are increasingly integrating CFD-based virtual prototyping into the design process in an effort to reduce design time and meet performance requirements.

TGrid 3.0 gives users of the Fluent software a powerful integrated tool for creation of hybrid volume meshes. Hybrid meshes, consisting of mixed element types, allow analysts to combine the ease of tetrahedral meshing on complex geometries with the advantages of traditional hexahedral cells in regions of less geometric complexity. This can substantially reduce the setup time and overall model size compared to approaches that allow only a single element type per analysis. Fluent's new CFD solvers, FLUENT/UNS and RAMPANT 4.2, fully support solutions on hybrid meshes, including all available physical models, solution-based mesh adaptation, and parallel processing.

TGrid 3.0 also improves the quality of automatically generated meshes, with viscous hybrid meshing tools. Viscous hybrid meshes use a layer of prism elements along walls, with tetrahedral elements in the bulk flow region. Compared to all-tetrahedral meshes, viscous hybrid meshes result in dramatic savings, with far fewer elements required to accurately resolve boundary layers and yield good near-wall prediction of shear stress, heat transfer, and flow separation. Viscous hybrid meshes make it possible for designers to take advantage of automated mesh generation and get accurate predictions using fewer elements.

The new releases also support non-conformal mesh interfaces (interfaces where mesh lines are discontinuous). Support for non-conformal meshes means that CFD models can be created in a modular mode, with interchangeable meshed parts. This parts-based meshing dramatically improves productivity and increases the number of parametric design changes that can be quickly analyzed.

FLUENT/UNS and RAMPANT 4.2 also provide many new modeling features that expand the range of applications that can be analyzed. Included in this list are a Reynolds Stress Turbulence model for greater accuracy for highly swirling flows (e.g., cyclones), anisotropic thermal conductivity for heat conduction through composite materials, and modeling extensions for representing fans and rotor-stator interaction. Combined with previous capabilities like steady or transient, laminar or turbulent flow, chemical mixing or combustion and reaction, and heat transfer with radiation, the new releases provide a wide range of modeling capability combined with outstanding mesh flexibility. Fluent Inc.any%> 10 Cavendish Court, Lebanon, NH 03766. Contact: Ahmad Haidari, 603-643-2600, x322; Fax: 603-643-3967.