[ma.]

Hey,

I'm using the student-version of the Ansys workbench for my bachelor thesis. My university got the normal version of the workbench and also a license for ICEM. I have to build pretty simple 3d structures which consist mainly of the combination of pipes (like one horizontal pipe connecting two vertical pipes). In the end I want to see how the air flows around the combination of the pipes. So I don't care about the inside of the pipes but about the outside. My supervisor told me, that I should try meshing with ICEM, because it should be more accurate than the meshing with workbench. So I thought about comparing the mesh of a single pipe created with ICEM and a pipe created with the workbench and then decide if it's worth to use ICEM instead of the workbench meshing. But how can I check which one is better for the CFX? And what are your opinions, which meshing would be more useful for my purpose? Also a general explanation about the differences of ICEM and the workbench meshing would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance!

[cysanghavi]

Well, in ICEM you can check the Quality of mesh, the jacobian, the aspect ratios, and the method to modify the mesh is more computationally cheap.
With workbench mesh, you might get a very good mesh, but at some Point the mesh will be too fine.
ICEM had very good Features of blocking and apts perfectly for circular pipes. You have more advanced faetures for creating a mesh as you want.
Its up to you to decide what you want, but ICEM will help a lot to get an optmized mesh.

[divergence]

Meshing might be easier to start with but if you are going the mesh around with cfd (pun very much intended ), you're probably better off with ICEM.

The quality parameters cysanghavi mentioned are also available in Meshing alongside with couple of other parameters too. Creating a mesh can be quite straightforward with Meshing but suffice to say that there are still some number of bugs and other irritating traits. The software has been developed quite dramatically during the past years and the evolution will probably continue relatively fast for some time.

I have understood that ICEM is the choice for most of the CFD professionals who use Fluent. It is supposed give better control over the mesh and meshing itself.

If I were you, I would most probably go with ICEM.

[ma.]

Thank you both very much for your helpful answers.

First I thought about not trying ICEM because the workbench mesher seemed to be easier and faster and I thought it wouldn't make a difference if I build only simple geometry. But now I will definitely try ICEM and maybe even compare the meshes.

Thanks and greetings!