AcceleratingthedesignprocessbymeshinguncleanCADdirectly

Introduction
DespitealltheprogressdoneinCFDintherecentyears,oneofthebiggestbottlenecksremainsunclean CAD. Today the standard in the industry is to spend weeks on manual CAD cleaning using special dedicatedsoftware,whichcantakemorethan50%oftheengineeringtime. NUMECA International is proud to present HEXPRESSTM/Hybrid, the first software that offers an automatic solution which can be used to close complete car configurations. The following case study providesanexampleofhowHEXPRESSTM/HybridcanbeusedfortreatinguncleanCADandmeshingitin lessthanadayforthiskindofconfiguration. HEXPRESSTM/Hybrid is a volumetosurface mesher that uses an octree method that includes automatic edgecapturingandflexibleviscouslayers.OneofthemainadvantagesisthatHEXPRESSTM/Hybridallows skippingtheCADcleaning,surfacewrappingandsurfacemeshingbydirectlycreatingavolumemeshon uncleanCAD. The state of the art in CFD processes at the moment is a first phase, where the CAD is simplified and cleaned.Duringthisprocess,partswhicharenotimportantforCFDsimulations(electriccables,interior, seats, trunk, etc) are deleted and a watertight surface is created. This simplified and closed geometry typicallyhasatriangulationof2to4millionelements. HEXPRESSTM/Hybrid has been used extensively in meshing these geometries prepared for CFD analysis. HEXPRESSTM/Hybrids ability to work directly from the original CAD files is what makes it unique. TypicallyaCADofacompletecarconsistsofaround20filesorpartswhereeachoneofthesecanhavea triangulationof5to30millionelements. OnacompletecartheHoleSearchercanbeusedtoclosethegeometryautomatically.Fromthereahigh qualityhexdominantmeshcanbegeneratedinamatterofdays!
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Case
Thegeometrytreatedisanormalroadcarandwasreceivedinatriangulated.stlfileformat.Stlfilescan be exported out of every major CAD software. This simplified geometry (around 30 000 surface elements)explainstheworkflowwhichcanbeappliedtomorecomplexcases.

Thefollowingworkflowisapplied:

ClosingoftheCADusingthe HoleSearcher

MeshinginHEXPRESSTM/Hybrid

BothstepsruninbatchesandarecontrolledbyanASCIIconfigurationfile.
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Step1:theHoleSearcher
Forbiggergapsandholes,HEXPRESSTM/HybridcontainsatoolcalledtheHoleSearcher.

Bydefaultitis"cold"outsidethegeometryandtheusercandefineoneormore"warm"spotsinsidethe geometry. If there are holes in the geometry, the isothermal surfaces will indicate them and the iso surfacescanbeusedforclosingthem. Afterwards, the different isosurfaces proposed by the HoleSearcher are analyzed and the best one is chosen. Often, there exist more then one solution to close a geometry. As an example for cars, you can closethemodelatthearmature,oryoucancloseitattheheightofthemotorblock,oratthegrille.

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Step2:Meshgeneration
After selecting the best isosurface to close the geometry, the user saves it asa separate file and uses it asaninputfileduringmeshgeneration. For this case, a simple coarse mesh was generated. The final mesh has 5 viscous layers and around 10 millioncellsintotal. The same approach can be used on nonsimplified CAD data, where the resulting meshes often contain 30to100millioncells,dependingontherequirements.

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Completecarconfiguration
Airconditioner Axis Brake Doors Electriccables Engine Exhaustpipes Fueltanks Interior Seats Suspension Underbody Upperbody MeshinginHybrid CADcleaning MeshinginHybrid CADsimplificationby deletingunnecessaryparts Closingthegeometry usingtheHoleSearcher

HEXPRESSTM/Hybridcanbeusedinthetraditional workfloworcanbeuseddirectlyontheCADdata

n.v. NUMERICAL MECHANICS APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL s.a.