28. Creating Surfaces for Displaying and Reporting Data

ANSYS FLUENT allows you to select portions of the domain to be used for visualizing the flow field. The domain portions are called surfaces, and there are a variety of ways to create them. Surfaces are required for graphical analysis of 3D problems, since you cannot display vectors, contours, etc. or create an XY plot for the entire domain at once. In 2D you can usually visualize the flow field on the entire domain, but to create an XY plot of a variable in a portion of the interior of the domain, you must generate a surface. In addition, in both 2D and 3D, you will need one or more surfaces if you want to generate a surface-integral report. Note that ANSYS FLUENT will automatically create a surface for each boundary zone in the domain. Surface information is stored in the case file.

The following sections explain how to create surfaces, rename, group, and delete them, and determine their sizes.