[akennedy]

Hi,
I've been using the Helyx software to model the flow over finite wings, and I am having some difficulty during the post processing stage.

Is there any way to obtain a force coefficients file after the solver has run?

So far I have tried inserting a '#include "force coeffs"' into the control dict as well as adding a force coeffs file into the systems directory, but this doesn't seem to produce anything.
Thanks to anyone who is able to help me,
Andrew

[chegdan]

@Antech (Andrew),

To fully resolve small regions you can try several approaches:

1. Use a refinement box with a higher level that will refine in the region where you are getting collapsed cells. This will help prevent that but you will have a jump in cell refinement that you may need to change some other settings in snappyHexMesh.
2. lower your base mesh size, however this could make your mesh really large.
3. Bump your levels up, but you have already noted that this does not have much affect on your mesh.
4. use explicit feature snappng with eMeshes. This means that you would need to do a surfaceFeatureExtract and create the emesh files and load them into the GUI

I would try various combinations of these strategies to prevent collapsed cells and also resolve your small structures.

@ AKennedy (Andrew)
If you run your solver from HELYX-OS (i.e. the run button) , it will remove entries that where not written by the GUI. As a bit of a workaround, you can try using echo in the run script (hit "edit script" in the run options subsection in the caseSetup and Run tab) to write some lines at the end of your control dict.

echo "
functions 
{ 
    #include \"forceCoeffs\" 
}" >> $CASE/system/controlDict

just above the lines

$SOLVER -case $CASE 2>&1 | tee $LOG

or the mpirun command if you are running in parallel. this is of course assuming you have a file called forceCoeffs in your system directory like the motorbike example. I hope this helps

[Antech]

chegdan
Thanks for your reply! I'll try to do the approaches you mentioned.
Refining initial blockMesh is "no chance" in my case, I think. It will be too large. Orifice diameter is 8 mm, domain bounding box is about 600x2000x2000 mm. Tests are performed in virtual machine with 8 GB of memory. Geometry contains about 1300 orifices (8 mm diameter) and it's only a test case. Real case is 5 times larger.

Why does HelyxOS (version 2) zero my min and max surface refinement levels when I click Create mesh? I can understand that snappyHexMech with simple settings may not work properly on very small features like my orifices but why min and max ref levels in snappyHexMeshDict generated with HelyxOS are zeros when I input non-zero values via GUI? And then, after mesh generation, GUI shows zeros too?

BTW, I have reviewed several HelyxOS v1 presentations and pictures show that initialy very coarse blockMesh catches very small features (much smaller than initial mesh cell) after Snappy. Possibly they used something like volume refinement box or extract features...

[Antech]

chegdan
Hello. Here are results of experiments using your suggestions.
1. Using the refinement box via Helyx-OS. It works, but:
1.1. It doesnt catch geometry automatically and it's not interactive so one must define all refinement boxes by coordinates in STL that are different from SolidWorks model (zero point is shifted).
1.2. With this method one can only refine a simple shapes (box, sphere e.t.c) that will lead in very excessive mesh element consumption on complex geometries due to refinement not only in required areas.
2. Lower base size. It's absolutely unreal in my case. Initial mesh will not fit in memory.
3. Increase refinement levels. Helyx-OS v2.0.0 still zeroes my surface refinement levels so I can't increase them... And I didn't find Helyx-OS v1 on the Net.
4. Feature extraction (surfaceFeatureExtract). OK, it works, but subject (Helyx-OS) doesn't support it via GUI. Am I wrong?

For now I find the only method working for me. I take a motor bike mesh example from OpenFOAM 2.x tutorials and supply it with my geometry. Then I changing refinement limits and levels and running Allrun script. After that paraFoam shows beautiful mesh but it's offtopic here...

[chegdan]

Increase refinement levels. Helyx-OS v2.0.0 still zeroes my surface refinement levels so I can't increase them

If you have a test case that does this then I would like to take a look at this.

[Antech]

chegdan
Here is my test case: http://rghost.net/52650670
Take a look at Geometry => Slice => Refinement => SURFACE (min/max levels).
Helyx-OS version: 2.0.0

Thanks for your help.

[chegdan]

Antech,

Your issue has been fixed in the maintenance release of HELYX-OS v2.0.1 just uploaded about an hour ago. The maintenance is continuing with OpenFOAM 2.2.x for now, but there are some changes that need to be made for compatibility...which will happen soon to support 2.3.x Give this version a try and report future issues to the sourceforge page ticket tracker, as that will send me (us) an email immediately so i can follow up quickly.

Dan

Originally Posted by Antech

chegdan
Here is my test case: http://rghost.net/52650670
Take a look at Geometry => Slice => Refinement => SURFACE (min/max levels).
Helyx-OS version: 2.0.0

Thanks for your help.

[Antech]

chegdan
Thanks! New version tested and seems to work fine with surface refinement settings on my test case. Hope I'll perform more tests when I'' got the time.

[atg]

Just had to reinstall my system.

I installed OF 2.3.0. Will Helyx 2.0.1 work with OF230? If not I will uninstall and recompile 2.2.x.


Thanks,
Karl

[chegdan]

Karl,

At present, HELYX-OS 2.0.1 is meant to work with OpenFOAM-2.2.2. There are slight differences in 2.2.x to 2.3.x that are being resolved for a future release in the coming months. You can always have multiple version of OpenFOAM installed if you like 2.3.x...and point HELYX-OS to a 2.2.2 install using the Edit > preferences dropdown. When you launch HELYX-OS it will load what you have set in your preferences.

Originally Posted by atg

Just had to reinstall my system.

I installed OF 2.3.0. Will Helyx 2.0.1 work with OF230? If not I will uninstall and recompile 2.2.x.

Also, where is the pricing information on the full Helyx (not OS)? Just wondering how many zeros are involved.

Thanks,
Karl

[RMacReamoinn]

Originally Posted by jlp56

I previously asked this on sourceforge but was redirected here: The gui looks great from the screenshots so I am keen to try it. I am running into problems installing the bin file on mac osx - during the install, at the select install directory prompt it doesn't seem to recognise any destination I give it. It always returns "destination doesn't exist". Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

jlp56,

Did you ever resolve this issue? I'm running into the same problem now.

Réamonn

[JR22]

Any news? I think I saw something on sourceForge....

[oliverks]

I am importing an STL file into HelyxOS. My STL file is set up in mm, but HelyxOS seems to assume meters. Is there a way to specify that my STL file is in mm or do I need to convert my STL file to meters?

Oliver

[chegdan]

Originally Posted by oliverks

I am importing an STL file into HelyxOS. My STL file is set up in mm, but HelyxOS seems to assume meters. Is there a way to specify that my STL file is in mm or do I need to convert my STL file to meters?

Oliver

when you import your STL, there is a column called "scale" with an x, y, and z component. Enter 0.001 for each of those entries and it will be scaled properly to mm in HELYX-OS.

[Jetfire]

hii,
will helyxOS V2.1.1 work on openfoam 2.2.2?

[chegdan]

@Jetfire

The answer is yes and no. There are things that have changed from 2.2->2.3 so those are different. You have two options:

1. Use and older version of HELYX-OS that officially supports 2.2
2. Move to OpenFOAM 2.3 and use the newest HELYX-OS release

Good luck!

[Jetfire]

hii chegdan

thanks for your reply

[Jetfire]

@chegdan

i have installed helyxOS 2.1.1 and tried simulating flow over a cylinder.
i was unable to import the stl file of the cylinder properly, this was the error shown in vtkerror.txt file

ERROR: In /home/stefano/VTK5/SRC/IO/vtkOpenFOAMReader.cxx, line 4636
vtkOpenFOAMReaderPrivate (0x7f7898080eb0): Error opening /home/eatin/OpenFOAM/Engys/HELYX-OS/v2.1.1/trail/constant/polyMesh/faces.gz: Can't open. If you are trying to read a parallel decomposed case, set Case Type to Decomposed Case.


ERROR: In /home/stefano/VTK5/SRC/Filtering/vtkExecutive.cxx, line 756
vtkCompositeDataPipeline (0x7f7898081480): Algorithm vtkPOpenFOAMReader(0x7f7898078520) returned failure for request: vtkInformation (0x7f789807a390)
Debug: Off
Modified Time: 464173
Reference Count: 1
Registered Events: (none)
Request: REQUEST_DATA
FROM_OUTPUT_PORT: 0
FORWARD_DIRECTION: 0
ALGORITHM_AFTER_FORWARD: 1




ERROR: In /home/stefano/VTK5/SRC/Common/vtkLookupTable.cxx, line 117
vtkLookupTable (0x7f789807b160): Bad table range: [0, -1]

Please help me with this. Thanks

[chegdan]

Post the STL of your cylinder and I will take a look.

Also, what is the value of

locale

command in your terminal?

Also, from the post that was previously edited

i have installed helyxOS 2.1.1 and tried simulating flow over a cylinder.
helyx imports the stl file of simple solid cylinder created on proE without showing any errors but doesnt show up on the display screen, i even changed the scaling factors to 0.001 to convert from mm to meters.
Can you help me with this as in the future i have to import stl files of complex geometries.

Can you open this STL from ProE in ParaView?

[Jetfire]

Please find the STL file in the attachments.

locale command in terminal gives utf-8

yes, i am able to open it in paraView

thanks.