Getting Started Guide - CFD Modeling Using ANSYS ICEMCFD & ANSYS CFX

Welcome “CFD Modeling using ANSYS ICEM CFD and ANSYS CFX”. As you have just begun this course, here is a short document which will guide you on how to proceed with this course. This course could be typically finished in 6 weeks. Below is a week by week planner which will help you to get the best out of this course !! 

If you have any queries during any of the lecture, feel free to contact me on mytutor@learncax.com. You can also schedule a live WebEx/Skype sessions with me to resolve your queries. A link is given at Download attachments section at the end of this article to download this getting started guide.

This is the overall plan designed based on my experience with previous students. The timelines are rough estimation about how much time is necessary for this course. This does not mean that you should complete your course in given timeline only. The idea is to get correct knowledge of the subject. So do not hesitate to modify this plan and extend the timeline if necessary. It is also assumed that you are not going to have any long break in-between the course. I also suggest you not to do this as you may need to repeat few lessons in that case.

Week 1

Following are the tasks you can try to achieve in the first week. The main objective is to get familiar with our Learning Management System (LMS) and to get and overview of what CFD is?

  • Get yourself familiar with LearnCAx LMS 
  • Read the course guide 
  • Watch & Understand the ‘Introduction to CFD’ lecture videos 
  • Solve the Unit Test -1 
  • Solve the Unit Test -2

Week 2

The objective of second week of learning is to complete CFD foundation module. After completing this module you would have good understanding of CFD and three important steps in CFD viz. pre-processing, solution and post-processing. 

This week you can also keep the target of knowing more about pre-processing software ANSYS ICEMCFD. As compared to first week, these are bit heavy target to keep, but I believe that you have already accelerated your learning process.

  • Watch & Understand the ‘CFD equations and numerical solutions’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand the ‘Finite Volume Method’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘CFD Analysis – The software perspective’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘Introduction to Preprocessor ANSYS ICEMCFD’ lecture video 
  • Watch & Understand ‘Geometry in ICEMCFD’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand demos on geometry creation in ICEMCFD lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ICEMCFD geometry cleanup video tutorial 

Week 3

The objective of this week is to develop understanding and expertise in multiblock hexahedral meshing in ANSYS ICEMCFD. This method is one of the critical methods to learn and needs lot of practice to get comfortable with. Make sure that after understanding the concepts, you practice those on simple geometries. Do not try this on complicated geometries at first. This is one of the difficult methods to understand, so try to allocate more time as compared to what you have allocated in first two weeks.

  • Watch & Understand ‘Hexameshing’ lecture videos 
  • Solve objective test on ‘ICEMCFD Hexa Blocking’ 
  • Watch & Understand Demo on ‘Hexa meshing of a sample cylinder in ICEMCFD’
  • Watch & Understand ‘ICEMCFD hexa meshing’ video tutorial 
  • Practice the standard ANSYS ICEMCFD tutorial on meshing a 2D pipe junction using (more information available in ‘Information on practice tutorial’ section) 
  • Practice the standard ANSYS ICEMCFD tutorial on meshing a 3D pipe junction using (more information available in ‘Information on practice tutorial’ section) 
  • Practice the standard ANSYS ICEMCFD tutorial on Hexa mesh generation for an elbow part(more information available in ‘Information on practice tutorial’ section) 

Week 4

The main objective of week 4 is to get around unstructured meshing technique in ANSYS ICEMCFD. For complex geometries, this is the most regularly used meshing method. As mutliblock method takes lot of practice, this method would come really handy if you want to get the feel of complete CFD process. You can easily create a mesh for simple geometry and try your knowledge on solver quickly.

At the end of week, you can also plan to get introduced to ANSYS CFX solver. The target is to understand the interface and overall workflow.

  • Watch & Understand ‘ICEMCFD shell meshing’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘ICEMCFD Tetra volume meshing’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘ICEMCFD Tetra prism’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand demo video on tetra meshing of a sample cylinder in ICEMCFD
  • Watch & Understand the tetra meshing video tutorial 
  • Practice the standard ANSYS ICEMCFD tutorial on Tetra meshing of a helicopter geometry (more information available in ‘Information on practice tutorial’ section) 
  • Watch & Understand ‘CFD Workflow Demonstration’ using ANSYS CFX lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘Domain Conditions in ANSYS CFX’ lecture videos
  • Watch & Understand ANSYS CFX Interface settings lecture videos
  • Start the ICEMCFD assignment which will be sent to you by email at the start of Week 4.

Week 5

You can plan to finish ANSYS CFX solver learning in this week. This includes details about solver settings and how to do solver setup for a problem. You can also get hands around available post-processing options. The objective is just to know the available post-processing options. You need to some practice and work on few projects to use them effectively.

I will share a course project definition at the start of this week with you. You can spend some time to understand the project details and start the project execution. 

  • Watch & Understand CFX solver settings lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand CFX solver setup lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand CFD Post Processing lecture videos
  • Start the course project which will be sent to you by email at the start of Week 5. 

Week 6

Most of the required basic learning is finished by end of Week 5. The knowledge you have till know would be sufficient to work on the project. This week you can plan to get introduced to some advance topics in ANSYS CFX.

You should also work on the allocated projects and submit the report to me for both the projects on ANSYS ICEMCFD and course project.

  • Watch & Understand ‘ANSYS CFX expression language’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand  ‘ANSYS  CFX command language’ lecture videos 
  • Watch & Understand ‘Transient Simulations in ANSYS CFX’ lecture videos 
  • Submit through email a short report (word document or presentation or PDF) on the ICEMCFD project assignment by end of this week. 
  • Submit through email a short report (word document or presentation or PDF) on the course project by end of this week.

Course Closure

By the end of six weeks, you should submit the reports on ICEMCFD and course project. I will review the reports and if needed you may need to work for some more time to do the required modification.

After completion of the review process, your course coordinator will send you the course certificate and hard copy of lecture notes. You can use these lecture notes for any further studies.