I am undertaking a project as part of my degree in the aerodynamics of a vehicle. I intend to use Pro-Engineer Wildfire to draw the vehicle in question, and import to Star-CD as a file of STL format.

i hope to use Pro-am to create the mesh which will be analysed. my question is as follows:

As the geometry of the car will not have fluid flow through it, only around the vehicle, is it neccesary for the CAD drawing to be a mould of the car?

i.e The mould of the car will be a box shape (domain) with a hollow centre (Hollow centre relating to the geometry of the car)

Currently, at my university, no one has used pro-am to its full extent, and therefore i am trying to eliminate possible time consumption within my project.

If you do not focus on heat transfer,you can leave the the geometry of the car as hollow,if it is necessary,you should make the geometry of the car as solid.

i suggest you to export a parasolid from pro-e and import it in star desing, subtract the solid from your phisical domain and mesh directly in star design. it's a lot faster way to obtain a good looking mesh.

Here is the approach I would use,

From Pro-E Can you export a .iges file?

With this *.iges file I would read it into Prosurf and in Prosurf generate the surface and write it to a database.

With Pro-Am read in the database. Now you have a surface in Pro-Am. Here is where a lot of the work begins. Keep in mind getting a "clean" closed surface is half the battle of generating a mesh, so spend alot of time here because this is what your mesh will be based on.

Now you can either Wrap the surface or Close it by hand. You will have to make this judgement when you look at the surface you imported. And yes you want a closed volume with a hollow center to model the aerodynamics.

If you need any help just ask, for example if you get an *.iges file I can take a look at it.

Kevin

To start, to everyone for replying and showing an interest - Thank you.

1. In reference to post, by xhliu - Thank you.

I am not investigating heat trasfer simply the aerodynamics of a specific vehicle (the vehicle is currently dependant upon which manufacture chooses to supply with me with the geometry).

Therefore if any car manufacturer is reading this post/forum, i am willing to base my entire masters project on your vehicle please get in touch for further details. Javidan.ahmad@kcl.ac.uk (Kings College London)

2. In reference to post left by A. Grossi - Thank you.

This method was suggested to me by a PHD student, and further investigation into this will be conducted. However, i was under the impression that this method is used when Pro-Am is not used, which is why i concluded to subtract the geometry of the vehcile from the physical domain in Pro-engineer.

I am unfamiliar with exporting as a parasolid and further research/investigation will be carried out into this technique.

3. In reference post left by Kevin Goodheart - Thank you.

Currently Pro-E has no manner in which saving in .iges file format. I believe CD-Adapco has an extension which could make this possible - However, i believe this is available at extra cost i am unsure whether my university will be willing to pay for such an item.

I have Pro-surf available to use - and have taken a few moments to have a look at the tutorials provided. This seems a very efficient method to use. However, as mentioned before i am unable to conclude whether or not i will be able to create the .iges file required.

In reference to the amount of time spent in Pro-Am - this has been acknowledged and further familiarisation with the package will be conducted.

Mr Kevin Goodheart - I will be in touch in due time as soon as i have had sufficient time to look into the suggestions made by yourself and others.

Once again to all - Thank you very much.

Javidan I am no expert with Pro-AM in aeodynamics, but you can do it son!

If you have Pro/E you should be able to get the STAR-PRO/E CAD plug-in and so use STAR-CD within proe - should be free from CD if your uni is paying maintenance!

Then you can do much of the whole job in proe and so do need to model the box of air and the car subtracted. However if surface meshing is problematic (caused by bad cad usually), split the bad surfaces and retry or use pro-surf on the .ezs file.

If you just have the car surface you can import into proam (via pro-surf to repair and mesh if required), then create a box template custom mesh for your air domain.

The cut the car from this template and take the external rather than the normal internal part of the custom mesh (use the Advanced setting 'Flip shell orientation' - much easier).

Kevin...when did you get so smart

When did you get so smart.

m