How to create mesh using ICEM CFD

By: Zamri Abdullah (zamriabdl@yahoo.com)

1. In the Design Modeler, click on the ‘Project’ tab. Go to the ‘Proceed Advanced Meshing’

2. Then a new window will appear for the ICEM CFD

3. Look at the top left window; make sure you click the curves and surfaces boxes. And see
the effect on the geometry in the main window

4. Now you need to name your ‘inlet’ ‘outlet’ and ‘wall’ of the geometry. To do this, right
click the ‘Parts’ box in the left window, and a sub menu will pop up.
5. Click on the ‘Create Part’ and a window on the bottom left will appear. Type any name
on the ‘Part’ box. E.g. IN..

6. Then click the ‘yellow arrow’ button. Then a menu will pop up like this. Make sure you
click the buttons in the red box below.
7. Then select the part indicated ‘IN’ in your geometry which includes all curves and
surfaces for that part. Left click to select, middle click to finish.

Left click to select Right click to confirm. Then the selected part will change in colour.

8. Do the same thing to all parts – OUT and WALL.

9. Then you can check whether your selected part that has been names is correct or not by
unchecking the boxes in the top left window for the ‘IN’, ‘OUT’ and ‘WALL’. If there is
some part of the geometry still exist when you check the ‘SOLID_1_1’ box (it may be
different name if you use other machines), then you might want to redo the step above.
Once completed, make sure when you uncheck all boxes except for ‘SOLID_1_1’, there is
nothing left in the main window that shows the geometry (in other words, the window
should be empty).
10. Then, delete the ‘SOLID_1_1’ box by right click
delete.

11. Now your system is ready to be meshed. First you must create a ‘BODY’ for the system.
Go to the tabs on the upper side of the window, and click the Geometry
Create Body.
(The fourth button on the ‘geometry’ tab)

12. Then a menu will appear like this. Click the ‘Centroid of 2 Points’, and the ‘yellow arrow.
13. A menu will pop up in the main window. Select any two point on the geometry,
preferably the far top left and the far bottom right.

14. Then ‘middle click’ the mouse to confirm. And you can see the word ‘Body’ will appear
on the geometry.

15. Now go to ‘Blocking’
‘Create Block’.

16. Upon clicking the create block, a menu will appear in the bottom left like this. Click on
the select geometry, the click OK

17. Then you can see a ‘block’ is created on your geometry.

Curves

Edges

18. Now you need to associate the ‘edges’ of the block to the ‘curves’ of the geometry. To do
this, go to the Blocking
Associate
19. A menu will appear. Click on the ‘Associate edge to Curve’.

20. Then click the ‘Edge(s)’ button – by which, in this case the all the line on one side of the
bounding box. When you click it, it will turn into other colour (red). Then middle click to
confirm. Then you can look at both the edges and the details in the dialog box after you
finish.
21. Do the same procedure for curves.

22. Do the same thing for the other end of the box.

23. Once you finish, click the ‘Update Association’ button and ‘apply’
24. Then click on the ‘Snap Project vertices’
‘All Visible’
OK. And you see the effect on
the geometry. The box is now moved inside the geometry.

25. Now the box (or now called, block) will serve as the basis of your meshing.

26. To get a better mesh, you need to construct an ‘O-grid’. To do this, go to ‘Blocking’

Split Block. Then a menu will appear on the bottom left.
27. Click the ‘O-grid Block’. Click on the ‘Select Block’ and ‘Select Faces’ to select the
respective blocks and faces with respect to the O-grid.

For the ‘block’, once you click the ‘Select Block’
+, then click to any point inside the
geometry, and middle click to confirm. A green block will then appear.

For the ‘face’, click two faces on the ‘inlet’ and ‘outlet’ of the geometry. Middle click to
confirm. Then blue boxes will appear respectively.
28. Set your ‘Offset’ value. Offset vale is how far will the edge of the original block will be
located from the side to create a new ‘O-grid’ block. You can try any value and see the
difference in your geometry. Then click OK to finish.

29. Now you need to create your mesh parameters. Go to ‘Mesh’
‘Part Mesh Setup’
30. A menu box will appear for you to fill in the values for the parameter. You can set any
values that you require and see the difference. For start, let’s put the values ‘1’ in the
boxes as shown below and remain the other values unchanged. Click Apply
Dismiss.

31. Then Go to ‘Blocking’
‘Pre-Mesh Params’
‘Update Sizes’
‘Update All’
OK

32. To generate mesh, click on the ‘Pre-Mesh’ box in the top left window, and a menu will
pop up. Then click ‘Yes’ on the pop-up menu.
33. And you can see the mesh is now being created.

.
34. You can check the no. of nodes, and other parameters at the dialog box under the
geometry.

35. Now save your project in the ‘Save Project’. Also it’s important to know that you can
always save the blocking, the meshing and all other steps that you’ve done in the
previous steps separately in the ‘File’ drop down menu.

36. You can also save your geometry, the blocking and meshing as you wish as well.
37. Now, in order to make the mesh that you’ve just created usable, you need to convert it to
what ICEM called ‘unstructed mesh’. Go to the ‘Pre –Mesh’ box again, right click and
click on the ‘Convert to Unstruc mesh’.

38. Next is save the mesh in ‘*.cfx5’ file. Go to ‘Output’
‘Select Solver’. Make sure you
select ‘ANSYS CFX’ in the ‘Output Solver’ box and ‘ANSYS’ in the Common Structural
Solver box. Then click OK.
39. Then on the same ‘output’ tab, click on the ‘Write Input’ button. Then a ‘Save As…’ box
will appear. Name it as you wish. Click OK.

40. Make sure that you have the *.cfx5 file in your folder for the project that you’ve just
created.