I have a part with many complex flow channels.  The part is modeled in Inventor.  Is there an automatic way to render the flow paths for input into CFD?  In other words, I want to turn the cavities in the part model into solids and get rid of the original solid bits.  Manually modeling it would be exceptionally tedious and prone to not exactly matching the original part.

CFD will do this for you. If you bring anything sealed and hollow from CAD into CFD it builds the volume automatically.

So, at each inlet and outlet add a new part. Take the shape of each opening and extrude this outwards so it is about 5x longer than it is wide.

Then you have both a nice internal flow volume and extensions at the inlets and outlets that will also be fluid and will typically provide a more stable solution too.

Does that make sense?

Thanks,

Jon

Hi @allennewcombBWSAK,

It looks like you tried to post an image, but I can't see it. Could you try again? Would it be possible to attach your CAD model so we can have a look?

Thanks,

.

@allennewcombBWSAK

So your flow is going through your inlet/outlet pipes AND the disk because they're all the same fluid. You could assign the disk (part "1 Test-2") as a solid and then the flow your just go straight through. 

Pertaining to what @Jon.Wilde was talking about. Check out the images here. I just took the electronics tutorial model CAD and added inlet/outlet caps and extruded them. You can tell via the section analysis there is no internal (air) volume. Once this is launched into CFD an internal volume will be generated.

I am attaching the step file if you'd like to check it out.

Thanks,