[kdang]

Thank you for stopping by.

I really need help with meshing thin wall cans in Fluent Meshing. Please see below for a description of my project.

I've been trying to create a CFD model to study the heat transfer between food cans and hot gas inside an industrial convection oven. I was able to create a decent mesh for this model using GAMBIT. But the mesh is really large (154 million cells), which makes it difficult to solve and post-process.

Therefore, I have tried to use Fluent Meshing to check if I could reduce the mesh size and the meshing efforts required by GAMBIT. I've simplified most of the oven components with high aspect ratio by using zero-thickness walls and shell conduction. However, I had to model the cans as solid because of the project requirements.

I have not been able to create good mesh for the cans. I have tried to add different local sizings: face size, curvature scoped to faces, or proximity scoped to either edges or faces. But I have always get a mesh orthogonal quality below 0.1. I sometimes got even left-handed cells.

I'm really lost as to what to try next. Any suggestion is really appreciated. Please see attachments for can geometry and dimensions.

Thank you so much for your time!

[siw]

Just an idea, and I'm thinking about from a SpaceClaim (geometry prep) and Ansys Meshing (but should be the same for Fluent Meshing) point of view.

In SpaceClaim slice the model as follows: 1) cut the can disk off the bottom for a sweepable circular body and 2) cut the cylinder in half for two sweepable bodies. Put them into the same Component and set to Share to enforce node conformal mesh. Then use edge sizings and MultiZone or Sweep Methods.

Basically, just slice up the geometry into simple shapes and use Share. This allows more control for face and edge sizings.