28.3 Partition Surfaces

If you are using the parallel version of ANSYS FLUENT (see Chapter  32), you may find it useful to create data surfaces defined by the boundaries of mesh partitions. As described in Section  32.5, partitioning the mesh divides it into groups of cells that can be solved on separate processors when you use a parallel solver. A partition surface will contain faces or cells on the boundary of two mesh partitions. For example, you can plot solution values on the partition surface to determine how the solution is changing across a partition interface. Figure  28.3.1 shows cell-partition contours on a partition surface which is overlaid on the mesh.

Figure 28.3.1: Contours of Cell Partitions on Partition Surface Overlaid on Mesh

To create a partition surface, you will use the Partition Surface dialog box (Figure  28.3.2).

Surface $\rightarrow$ Partition...

Figure 28.3.2: The Partition Surface Dialog Box

The steps for creating the partition surface are as follows:

1.   Specify the partition boundary you are interested in by indicating the two bordering partitions under the Partitions heading. The boundary that defines the partition surface is the boundary between the "interior partition'' and the "exterior partition''. Int Part indicates the ID number of the interior partition (i.e., the partition under consideration), and Ext Part indicates the ID number of the bordering (exterior) partition. The Min and Max fields will indicate the minimum and maximum ID numbers of the mesh partitions. (The minimum is always zero, and the maximum is one less than the number of processors.) If there are more than two mesh partitions, each interior partition will share boundaries with several exterior partitions. By setting the appropriate values for Int Part and Ext Part, you can create surfaces for any of these boundaries.

2.   Choose interior or exterior faces or cells to be contained in the partition surface by turning Cells and Interior on or off under Options. To obtain a surface consisting of cells that are on the "interior'' side of the partition boundary, turn on both Cells and Interior. To create one consisting of cells that are on the "exterior'' side, turn on Cells and turn off Interior. If you want the surface to contain the faces on the boundary instead of the cells, turn off the Cells option. To have the faces reflect data values for the interior cells, turn the Interior check button on, and to have them reflect values for the exterior cells, turn it off.

3.   If you do not want to use the default name assigned to the surface, enter a new name under New Surface Name. The default name is the concatenation of the surface type and an integer which is the new surface ID (e.g., partition-surface-6). (If the New Surface Name you enter is the same as the name of a surface that already exists, ANSYS FLUENT will automatically assign the default name to the new surface when it is created.)

The surface name that you enter must begin with an alphabetical letter. If your surface name begins with any other character or number, ANSYS FLUENT will not accept the entry.

4.   Click on the Create button. The new surface name will be added to the Surfaces list in the dialog box.

If you want to delete or otherwise manipulate any surfaces, click on the Manage... button to open the Surfaces dialog box. See Section  28.11 for details.