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Close the Design Modeler if you haven't already, and open ANSYS Mechanical by double clicking When ANSYS Mechanical opens, notice that there is a question mark next to Geometry in the Project Outline - this means that there is something missing in this section. Expand Geometry, expand Part 3, and select Outer Surfaceany of the surface bodies.
Notice that Thickness is highlighted as it does not have a value specified. Although we will ultimately specify a varying thickness for the the wind turbine blade, for now we will specify a dummy thickness so the geometry will mesh correctly. For the Outer Surfacethis surface body, enter 1e-5
next to Thickness. Repeat with the same value for Sparall other surface bodies.
There should no longer be a question mark next to Geometry.
Delete any Connections
ANSYS may create connections automatically - however they are not required for this simulation and will cause problems when meshing. Expand Connections and delete the folder titled Contacts by right clicking and selecting Delete,
Body Sizing
For this geometry, we will be using a body sizing. Click on Mesh in the Project Outline window to open up the Meshing Menu in the menu bar. To create a new sizing, go to Mesh Control > Sizing. Next, we need to select the geometry that the sizing will affect. We want to select the entire geometry. To do this, first select the body sizing filter . Next, hold down Ctrl and click on the outer surface of the wind turbine blade, as well as the spar on the inside of the blade.
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Create Contacts
Expand Connections and right click on Contacts and insert a Connection Group.
Click on the connection group and change the Face/Face detection to No and Face/Edge detection to Yes. This will create the appropriate contact between the wind blade and the spar.
Right click on Connection Group and click on Create Automatic Connections.
Mapped Face Meshing
Right click on Mesh and insert Mapped Face Meshing onto the top surface of the wind blade. This will ask the meshing code to create square elements.
Repeat the step for the bottom surface.
Generate the Mesh
Right click on Mesh and click on Generate Mesh.
The meshed wind blade is shown below:
We you have selected the two geometries, click Apply. Next to Geometry it should now say 2 Bodies
. Specify the Element Size to 0.25
. Finally, press Mesh > Generate Mesh to generate the mesh. The final result should look something like the image below.
Now that the geometry has been meshed, we are ready to setup the physics controlling the simulation.
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