Mesh

Initial Setup

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 any 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 this surface body, enter 1e-5 next to Thickness. Repeat with the same value for all other surface bodies.

There should no longer be a question mark next to Geometry.

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:

Now that the geometry has been meshed, we are ready to setup the physics controlling the simulation.

Go to Step 4 - Setup (Physics)
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