Before you begin your CFD analysis using the Fluent Materials Processing workspace, careful consideration of the following issues will contribute significantly to the success of your modeling effort. Also, when you are planning a CFD project, be sure to take advantage of the customer support available to all Ansys Fluent users.
The primary workflow for using the Fluent Materials Processing workspace is as follows:
Define your modeling goals.
Create a compatible mesh to represent the material processing domain (fluids, solids, and/or molds, etc.) by using meshing applications (such as the meshing capabilities in SpaceClaim, Ansys Meshing or Fluent Meshing) to generate a mesh in the Polyflow or Fluent format.
Start the workspace. See Starting and Exiting the Workspace for details.
Read in a mesh file. See Reading and Writing Files for details. You can also read in an existing journal or Fluent Materials Processing session file.
Setup your simulation (for example, simulation type/goals, cell zone definitions, material properties, boundary condition settings, solution constraints, and so on) using either of the following methods.
Manually create and define objects (using the Ribbon or the Outline View) to define all aspects of the simulation based on your requirements.
Use a specialized template that automatically defines most of your simulation objects based on key simulation type/goals. You can then revisit the settings and edit them as needed. See Choosing a Simulation Template).
Use a specialized wizard that can set up a simulation (and optionally calculate a solution) once you provide a few key inputs (applicable for simple direct extrusion, inverse extrusion, and blow molding problems). See Using the Simulation Wizard for more information.
Compute the solution. Use default solution settings, or adjust them accordingly, in order to obtain an accurate CFD solution. Convergence strategies are helpful in adjusting your solution. See Calculation Activities Properties for a listing of calculation-related controls and convergence strategies.
Examine and save the results. Use graphical analysis tools (such as contour plots, vector plots, and pathline plots) to better visualize your simulation results.
Consider revisions to the setup, if necessary.
The details of these steps are covered in the sections that follow.
Note: You can also save and later open session case files
(*.mprcas) that contain a simulation's current settings.
Transcripts of your work (*.trn) within a session can also
be saved. In addition, you can record and later run journal files
(.py).