The Neutral Data Format defines one or more blades. It can be written by BladeEditor and by BladeGen.
To load an NDF file into BladeEditor:
In BladeEditor, click Load NDF
.The Open dialog box appears.
Ensure that Files of type is set to
NDF (*.ndf;*.xml).Select an NDF file and click Open.
Note: In Ansys Workbench, you can import geometry from an NDF file into a Geometry cell (representing BladeEditor). To do this, right-click the Geometry cell and select Import Geometry > Browse.
If you have existing features at the time you load an NDF file, preference Load NDF Updates Model (see Model Settings) controls how feature name conflicts are resolved, as follows:
With the preference set to "Yes" (default), existing features are updated by any features of the same names from the NDF file. This enables you to update the BladeEditor geometry as part of a batch process.
With the preference set to "No", existing features are left unchanged and any features of the same names from the NDF file are renamed to unique names.
Note: If you are reading multiple NDF files into BladeEditor to update a geometry that contains multiple flow paths, you must ensure that the flow path names in the NDF files match those in the geometry, otherwise the update will fail.
Note that BladeGen uses the same flow path name when it exports an NDF file. In this scenario the flow path names in the NDF files must be adjusted manually. Preference Load NDF Updates Model must be turned off for this workflow to be successful.
The angle curve and thickness curve can have only one segment each. If several segments are provided by an NDF file, a conversion is applied to create one spline segment that approximates the multiple segments, and a warning message is issued. For the special case that the angle definition type is
Theta with LE/TE Beta, a curve with multiple segments is converted to a single Bezier segment and then the LE/TE Beta angles are applied to that single Bezier curve. In either of these cases, a warning message is issued when attempting to load the NDF file.Where a <tip-gap-definition> for shroud tip clearance or hub tip clearance is specified, angle and thickness definitions at the tip gap are not supported by BladeEditor and will be ignored.
The supported <surface-construction> and <thickness-construction> type combinations are as follows:
<surface-construction>
<thickness-construction>
General / Ruled Element / Radial Element / Flank Milled
General
General / Radial Element
Equation Driven
Axial Element
Axial Element
When loading a cloned splitter, any specified LE or TE contour is ignored.
For Flank Milled blades, the <surface-construction> types must be the same for main and splitter blades. If the <surface-construction> types differ, they will be modified on import and must be confirmed.