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titleDashboard Menu

Figure 1.1: Dashboard menu with the New Project button outlined in red.

Fill in the Project Title and Description, the rest can be filled in as desired or left alone. On eligible accounts projects can be specified as private here. Click Create project.

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titleNew Project Menu

Figure 1.2: The Create New Project menu. You probably don’t need to specify the simulation method in the title, as SimScale suggests.

Info

A naming system should be created and used to keep the account organized. After running several simulations, it becomes very difficult to remember the differences between each one.

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titleSample Project Tile

Figure 1.3: An example of a pre-existing project tile, new users don’t need to worry about this quite yet.

(I’m not suggesting this is a perfect naming system, but it’s better than several of the other projects on the team account.)

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Once the project is open, there is a navigation panel on the left which will display all the settings to setup and run the simulation. Begin by uploading a CAD file of the geometry to simulate by clicking on the plus symbol beside Geometries (Slightly different in a new project, SimScale will prompt you to upload your first geometry). Select the appropriate file(s), they should appear under the Import List. Finish by clicking Import in the bottom left of the pop-up window.

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The At the Import Geometry menu, the arrow to the left of the file will give some advanced options for the upload. I never needed these, but keep them in mind if you want SimScale to handle the geometry differently.

Finish by clicking Import in the bottom left of the pop-up window.

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titleGeometry Upload

Figure 1.4: Pop-up prompt when the project is brand new.

Figure 1.5: Use the navigation panel for future uploads, clicking on the plus symbol will bring up the same prompt as in the previous image.

Figure 1.6: Selecting a file will add it to the import list. Make sure the correct file type (e.g. Solidworks, STEP, IGES) is displayed beneath the name. SimScale has interpreted files as the wrong file type before.

For those that want to follow along with this guide, I’ll upload the simplified MSXIV geometry here.

View file
nameMS-AER001_Simplified.SLDPRT

Create Simulation

Once the geometry is uploaded, the simulation can be created by clicking the plus symbol beside Simulations. For CFD simulations at low speeds (Mach number less than 0.3) select Incompressible and click Create Simulation.

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titleCreate Simulation

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Figure 1.7: Most simulations for Midnight Sun will be incompressible, although SimScale is capable of many others. I believe there have been discussions of using SimScale for thermal and structural simulations.

Several more settings will appear in the navigation panel, however not every setting all of them can be completed yet. The next step will be to create a mesh.

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Each simulation setting will have a red, yellow, or green symbol beside it. Red means that a setting needs to be filled out to continue, green means that a value has been saved for that setting. I think yellow is only used for the mesh, and it means the mesh has been generated but is not selected.

Meshing -->