Ansys ICEM CFD & CFX Tutorial

Flow over Formula SAE Car Body

Problem:

In this tutorial you will be running a CFD simulation on the body of a Formula SAE
racecar. CFD has become very important in motorsports because it provides a way to
analyze how changes to a racecar’s body will affect the aerodynamic characteristics of
the car without repeated trips to a wind tunnel.

When air flows over the surface of a car, a boundary layer forms where there is a large
velocity gradient. In order to capture this phenomena correctly, the mesh around the
surface of the body must be very fine. To do this, a triangular surface mesh will be
extruded 10 times to create a prism boundary layer of small elements. In this tutorial,
each of you will be defining a different initial height for the first layer and a different
height ratio. The height ratio controls how fast each prism layer increases in size. So if
your initial height is X, the second extruded layer’s height will be X times the Height
Ratio, the third will be X times the Height Ratio squared, etc.

To perform this boundary layer study, you will be creating and solving two different
meshes. All of the mesh parameters will be staying the same between the two meshes
except for the boundary layer’s initial height and height ratio. The possible values for
each are listed in the table below.

Possible Boundary Heights and Height Ratios

Height Height Ratio
0.00010 1.000
0.00025 1.025
0.00050 1.050
0.00075 1.075
0.00100 1.100
0.00125 1.125
0.00150 1.150
Tutorial Structure
Pre-processing:
1. Import Geometry
2. Check Geometry
3. Apply Mesh Settings
4. Create Mesh Density Box
5. Mesh
6. Output to Ansys CFX
7. Import Mesh
8. Set up Boundary Conditions
9. Set up Fluid Properties
10. Change Solver Controls
11. Write Solver File

Solution:
12. Adjust Solver Settings
13. Run Simulation

Post-processing:
14. Calculate Aerodynamic Forces
15. Flow Visualization
Preprocessing
Open Ansys ICEM CFD by double-clicking the icon on the desktop. Before starting the
tutorial check that the product is setup correctly by selecting:

Settings -> Product

Under Product Setup “Default” should be selected. If it is not, select it and click Apply.

Be sure to save your project often.

1. Import Geometry

Download the geometry file and save into a new folder on your desktop. Open Ansys
ICEM CFD by double-clicking the icon on the desktop. Create a new project:

File -> New Project…

Select the folder you downloaded the geometry into name the new project “fsaeCar”.
Import the geometry by selecting:

File -> Geometry -> Open Geometry…

Select the geometry file you downloaded. You should be seeing a top view of the fluid
domain consisting of a bounding box and a half model of the Car geometry. In the lower
left hand window, there is a tree view where you can control what the program displays.

Take a few minutes to get familiar with manipulating the view. You can control what
type of geometry (Points, Curves, Surfaces) by selecting and deselecting the options
under Geometry. You can also control what Parts are displayed by selecting and
deselecting the options under Parts.

2. Check Geometry

In order to mesh the geometry, the geometry must be “watertight”. This means that there
are no gaps between surfaces. To check the geometry, click the Repair Geometry
button under the Geometry tab on the top toolbar.

The Repair Geometry window should be displayed above the Model Tree View. To
check the model, select the Build Diagnostic Topology button (it should be default
selection when you first open the window). Set the Tolerance to “0.001” and click
Apply.
There should now be a number of red lines in the display. Setup the display to only view
Curves, and only select Body to be viewed.

Zoom in to the body so you can see the color of the curves better. Near the rear of the
body, there are a couple of blue and yellow lines. Yellow lines mean that there is only
one surface connected to that line. This indicated a gap in the geometry. If you turn on
the Surfaces and zoom in to a yellow line, you should be able to see that the two surfaces
are not joined. There are also a couple of blue lines, which mean there are more than two
surfaces sharing that line.
For the geometry to be perfect there should only be Red lines. However, there are so few
yellow and blue lines that we should be able to mesh the geometry anyways.

3. Apply Mesh Settings

Now we need to apply mesh settings to each Part. For this analysis we will be using an
Unstructured Tetrahedral Mesh with a Prism Boundary Layer. What this means for us is
that we only need to decide how big we want the element size at the surface to be and the
Meshing Program will fill in the rest of the mesh for us.

Under the Mesh Tab click on the Part Mesh Setting button.

The Mesh Sizes for Parts window should appear. Here we can decide what the max
element size we want on each surface to be. We can also input the prism boundary layer
parameters for the Body. The parameters you will be changing are the Height and the
Height Ratio. Make sure the Max Size for each part is correct and enter in your first set
of values for the Height and Height Ratio options. The table should look like this.
Click Apply when you are done and then close the window.

4. Create Mesh Density Box

Before we can mesh the geometry, we need to create a “Mesh Density Box” behind the
body. As air flows over a car, there is a region of high turbulence directly behind the car
which is called a wake. To properly model the wake behind a car, the mesh size has to be
finer than in other areas. A “Mesh Density Box” is used to apply a Max Element Size to
an arbitrary volume in the fluid domain. This will allow the CFD Solver to solve the
problem correctly.

In the Model Tree View, select to view only Points and only the GEOM part. Four points
should now be displayed in the View window. We need to create four more points. To
do this, click the Create Points button under the Geometry tab.

The Create Points menu should now appear. Click on the Base Point and Delta button.
Enter 1 in the “DX” box. Then click the Select Locations button.
Click one of the four points and then press the middle mouse button (scroll wheel). A
new point should display in the view window. Repeat this step for the remaining three
points. When you are done, there should be a box of points behind the body.

Now under the Mesh tab, click the Create Mesh Density button.
The Create Density window should now be displayed. For name, enter “Density”. For
size (max element size in density box), enter 0.1. For ratio, enter 1.3. Click the Select
Locations button and select the 8 points. Click the middle mouse button (scroll wheel) to
apply the selections, then click Apply.

An orange box should now be displayed behind the car. This is the region where the Max
Element Size will be applied.
5. Mesh

Now all of the Meshing settings have been entered and the geometry is ready to be
meshed. Under the Mesh tab, click the Compute Mesh button.

The Compute Mesh window should now be displayed. Click the Volume Mesh Button.
The only change you need to make to the defaults is to click the Create Prism Layer
box.
Before proceeding, be sure to save your project. Once it is saved, click the Compute
button. The program will now create the mesh. This will take approximately 15 minutes.

When it is done meshing, it should display the surface mesh in the View Window.
Record the number of elements and the number of nodes by selecting

Info -> Mesh Info

The information is displayed in the Output Box at the bottom of the GUI. Be sure to save
your project. Next, save a new copy of the existing project by clicking

File -> Save Project As…

Name this new copy fsaeCarV2. In this project, you will create the second mesh you
need. Close the existing mesh by clicking

File -> Mesh -> Close Mesh…

Click No when it asks you if you want to save the mesh. The mesh you created is already
saved under your first project, so you do not need to save it again.
Click the Part Mesh Setup button again and change the values for the “Height” and
“Height Ratio” options for the Body to your second set of values. Also, set the “Max
Size” for the Body to 0.015 if it is blank.

At this point you can compute the mesh the same way you did the first one. Be sure to
save before and after, and also to record the number of nodes and elements of your new
mesh.

6. Output to CFX

At this point, you should have two different meshes saved under two different projects.
To output the mesh to CFX, you first need to change the Product Setup. Select

Settings -> Product

In this window, select “ANSYS ICEM CFD – ANSYS Solvers Version” and click Apply.
Now completely close out of Ansys ICEM CFD and restart the program.

The GUI should look slightly different. You basically do not have as many tabs at the
top of the GUI. Open up your first mesh project.
Click the Output to CFX button under the Output tab.

Click Save. Then click Done and Done in the next two windows that pop up. This will
output the mesh in a file format that ANSYS CFX can use.

Open your second meshing project output the mesh to CFX.

7. Import Mesh

We will now be switching over to a new program for the rest of the tutorial. The new
program is called Ansys CFX. It consists of a Pre-processor, a Solver, and a Post-
Processor. To open the program, select

Start Menu -> All Programs -> Ansys 11.0 -> CFX -> Ansys CFX 11.0

The CFX Launcher will pop up on your screen. First, change the working directory to
the folder on your desktop where your projects are saved. Once you have done this, click
on the CFX-Pre 11.0 button to start the pre-processor. Start a new simulation by
selecting

File -> New Simulation…

Click General and then click OK. This GUI is similar to ANSYS ICEM CFD. There is
a viewing window where you see your part and a Simulation Tree Window where all of
the information about your run is displayed. To import the mesh, right-click Mesh in the
Tree Window and select Import Mesh.
In the window that pops up, change the “File Type” to “ICEM CFD”. Your two meshes
should now be displayed in the view. Select one of them and click Open.

Save your simulation.

8. Set up Boundary Conditions

We will be using six different boundary types for this simulation:

a. Inlet
b. Outlet
c. Symm
d. Wall (Free Slip)
e. Wall (No Slip)
f. Wall (No Slip, Moving Boundary)

a. Inlet

To define the Inlet Boundary Condition, click

Insert -> Boundary Condition

Name the Boundary “Inlet” and Click OK.

The Boundary Definition window should now be displayed. For Boundary Type select
“Inlet”. For Location select INLET.

Under the Boundary Details tabs, enter 13 m/s for the Normal Speed and click OK.

b. Outlet

Insert a new boundary condition, but this time name it “Outlet”. Select “Outlet” for the
Boundary Type and “OUTLET” as the Location.

Under the Boundary Details tab, select “Average Static Pressure” for the Option and 0 Pa
as the Relative Pressure. Click OK.

c. Symm
Now we will define the Symmetry plane that is cutting the body model in half. Insert a
new boundary condition and name it “Symmetry”. Select “Symmetry” as the Boundary
Type and “Symm” as the Location. Click OK to apply the settings.

d. Wall (Free Slip)

For the ROOF and the WALL we will be applying a Free Slip Wall boundary condition.
Insert a new boundary condition and name it “Wall”. Select “Wall” as the Boundary
Type. For the Location option, click the “…” button and ctrl select “ROOF” and
“WALL”, then click OK.
Under the Boundary Details tab, for Option select “Free Slip”.

Click OK to apply the settings.

e. Wall (No Slip)

The Body of the car will be a No Slip Wall Boundary Condition. This Boundary
Condition sets the velocity of the fluid at 0 m/s on the wall of the Body. Insert a new
boundary condition and name it “Body”. Select “Wall” as the Boundary Type and
“BODY” as the location. Make sure “No Slip” is selected under the Boundary Details
tab and click OK.

f. Wall (No Slip, Moving Boundary)

To simulate the car driving on a road, the GROUND part is going to be setup as a moving
wall boundary condition. To do this, insert a new boundary and name it “Ground”.
Select “Wall” as the Boundary Type and select “Ground” as the Location. Under the
Boundary Details tab, make sure it is set as a “No Slip” boundary. Now, click the Wall
Velocity check box. Set Wall U to 0 m/s, Wall V to 13 m/s, and Wall W to 0 m/s. Click
OK.
9. Set up Fluid Properties

Right click “Default Domain” and select Edit. In this window that appears, you can set
up the material properties for the fluid. Under the General Options tab, select “Air at 25
C” from the Fluids List.
Under the Fluid Models tab, select “Shear Stress Transport” for the Turbulence Option.
Under the Initialisation tab, select the options shown below.
Click OK to apply the settings.

10. Change Solver Controls

Double click “Solver Control” in the Simulation Tree View. Set the Timescale Factor to
10. Click OK.
The rest of the information in this window controls when the solver will think it has a
convergent solution and will stop the analysis. Under Convergence Criteria, it has the
Residual Target as 1e-4. The residuals are a measure of imbalance in the equations the
Solver is solving from one iteration to the next. So when the RMS (root mean square) of
the residuals of each equation gets below 1e-4, the solution will stop. The Max.
Iterations option tells the Solver that if the residuals do not reach their target in 100
iterations, stop the analysis because it is not converging.

11. Write Solver File

At this point the simulation is completely defined. To write the file the solver will read,
right click “Solver” from the Tree View and select Write Solver File.
Name this file fsaeCarV1. Be sure that the drop down box in the upper right says “Write
Solver File”. Click Save.

Now you need to make a solver file for your second mesh. To do this, right click your
mesh file in the Tree View Window and click Delete Mesh.
Now, right click Mesh and select Import Mesh again. This time select your second
mesh file. When you import the second mesh file, all of the settings and boundary
conditions will be applied to it. So now all you have to do is write a new solver file the
same way you did the first, but name it “fsaeCarV2”.

Now that you have the two Solver Files, you can save and quit CFX-Pre.
Solution
12. Adjust Solver Settings

Open up the solver by clicking the CFX-Solver 11.0 button. Before we run the
simulations, there is one more parameter we need to change. Select

Tools -> Edit Definition File…

Open “fsaeCarV1.def” (or whatever you named your first definition file). Select
“ADVECTION SCHEME” from the list.

Now select

Edit -> Add Parameter

From the drop down list, select “Blend Factor Relaxation” and enter 0.1 for the value.
Click OK. Select Add Parameter again and this time choose “Gradient Relaxation” from
the drop down. Enter 0.1 for this value as well. Now your window should look like this.
Save and Exit the window. Repeat the same steps for your second Solver File.

13. Run Simulation

In CFX-Solver Manager, select

File -> Define Run…

For the Definition File, select your first Solver File. Click Start Run.
The solver will now start the CFD simulation. This will take approximately 1.5 hours,
but may take as long as 2 hours. When the run completes, it will ask you if you want to
Post-Process the results right away, select No.

The monitor that is currently displayed shows the equation residuals vs. iterations. If all
of the residuals are below the target of 1e-4, your simulation has converged. If the
residuals are above the target of 1e-4 and the solver has gone through 100 iterations, the
solution did not converge.

Now we will check to see if the information we care about (the aerodynamic forces) has
also converged. Select
Workspace -> New Monitor

Name the monitor “Forces”. Select the Y (drag) and Z (lift) forces and click OK.

A plot of the forces on the Body vs. each iteration step is displayed. Right click in the
plot area and select “Save As Image…”. You will need to turn this plot it.

Now, select

File -> Close

Now you can start a new run with the second Solver file.
Post-processing
For the post-processing, we will be using CFX-Post. Click on the CFX-Post 11.0 from
the CFX Launcher. This program contains many valuable tools for analyzing the results.
In this tutorial we will be calculating the exact aerodynamic forces on the body as well as
using some of the plotting features to visualize the flow around the body.

Load the results file by clicking

File -> Load Results…

Select your first solver file.

14. Calculate Aerodynamic Forces

Click on the Tools tab and then double click the “Function Calculator” option. For
Function, select “Force”. For Location select “Body”. To calculate the drag force, select
“Global Y”. Click Calculate to find the drag force on the body.
Repeat this step for the “Global Z” to find the lift force. Record both of these values.

Load your second results file and repeat the steps to find the lift and drag forces from the
second mesh.

15. Flow Visualization

We will be creating a pressure plot to visualize areas of high and low pressure on the car
as well as a streamline plot to visualize some of the trailing vortices which make up the
wake behind the car.

a. Mirror Body

First we need to reflect the body. Deselect “Wireframe” under “User Locations and
Plots” from the Outline tab to remove the lines from the display. Now double click
“Default Transform” to bring up the Default Transform window.

Deselect “Instancing Info From Domain” and select “Apply Reflection”. For Method
select “YZ Plane”. Click Apply.

b. Pressure Plot

Select
Insert -> Contour from the menu bar. Name it “Body Pressure” and click OK. For
Locations select “Body”. For Variable select “Pressure”. For Range select “Local” and
click Apply.

Your body pressure plot should look like this

Select

File -> Print

Name your file “BodyPressure.png”, select “White Background” and click Print. This
will save your current view as a .png file.

c. Wake Visualization

Deselect the “Body Pressure” plot from the Tree View so your screen is blank. Now
select

Insert -> Location -> Plane

Name the plane VortPlane and click OK. Choose “ZX Plane” for Method. Under Plane
Bounds select “Rectangular” with an X Size of 0.1 and a Z Size of 0.1.

Click Apply.

Now select

Insert -> Streamline

Name it “Trailing Vortices”. For Start From, select the “VortPlane” you just created.
For Direction, select “Forward and Backward”. Click Apply.
There should now be streamlines displayed in the view which travel under the body of
the car and exit in the rear, creating some recirculation and trailing vortices. Set up the
display so you can see the Body and the Streamlines. Rotate the view into a position you
think shows the trailing vortices the best and print the screen to an image file. It should
look something like this (since the streamline seed points are random, no two streamline
plots will look exactly the same).