Learning Forum

[jamesgr]

Hello everyone!

I am trying to create a sufficiently good mesh of a full centrifugal pump with a semi-open impeller design in order to determine performance characteristics such as pump head, efficiency and cavitation characteristics. I have already created the volute, clearance domain, inlet and outlet pipes using ICEM. However the impeller domain will need to fairly automatic as it will be used for design optimisation, and so I thought Ansys meshing workbench might give me a more automatic routine for this portion (also I had trouble in ICEM capturing edges between faces for this geometry using the Octree method).

Using just the automatic method with resolution settings set to fine and a proximity and curvature size function, as well as face sizing at the trailing edges and inflation layers on the impeller walls, gave me the following mesh.

In general, this mesh qualitatively looks to be of sufficient quality, however I am having a number of troubles around the trailing edge inflation layer.

This is quite the trouble area as the inflation layer consistently has a number of skewed faces in this region due to the shape of the corner here.

I have attempted to change a number of inflation parameters in order to create better elements around this corner to not much avail. The most recent iteration of these parameters are as follows:

Due to the sharp corner here, I wonder if my best bet wouldn't be to either use an internal wall or to project the surface mesh of the trailing edge back to the edge of the domain, however I'm not entirely sure how to do this in Ansys meshing workbench. Also both of these methods would require a significant amount of user input, whereas I would like the process to be as automated as possible for a design optimisation routine.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can proceed with this?

James