Design Cells

Design cells are the design variables for the optimization, that is, the cells in which the flow might be prevented by SIMULIA Tosca Fluid.

Typically you might not want to use all fluid cells in the model as design cells: It might be required that the fluid flow remains fully free in certain areas, for example, in connecting inflow-/outflow-ducts etc.

In SIMULIA Tosca Fluid, the design cells must be specified as a cell group. Automatically generated cell groups based on cell zones (FLUENT®) or regions (STAR-CCM+®) are available.

The figure below depicts the fluid mesh of a CFD model. The cells are assigned to two cell zones, namely „my_design_area“ and „frozen“:



In this example, the cells in „my_design_area“ zone are to be used as design cells and assume this cell zone has ID 2. SIMULIA Tosca Fluid creates a cell group 2_MY_OPTIMIZATION_AREA automatically. This group can be referenced in the <DV> command: 

<DV>
  <ID_NAME>my_design_cells</ID_NAME>
  <ELEMENT_GROUP>2_MY_OPTIMIZATION_AREA</ELEMENT_GROUP>
</DV>

The cells in the „frozen“ region are not altered by SIMULIA Tosca Fluid during the optimization. The flow in these cells remains fully free.

Note: The <DV> command must be referenced within the <OPTIMIZE> command.