Error: “Cannot open airfoil table naca16016.dat” in Fluent Tutorial 33.2 (VBM)

[asp89]

Hello everyone,

I’ve been following the Fluent Tutorial 33.2 for the Virtual Blade Method (VBM) applied to a propeller simulation. Everything has been progressing well until I reach the point where I need to load the airfoil data.

However, I keep encountering the following error:

Warning: VBM pre-processing is not completed due to the following. Fix the airfoil file and then apply VBM to proceed.
ERROR: Cannot open airfoil table naca16016.dat.

I’ve double-checked the file location and confirmed that the naca16016.dat file exists in the directory. I’ve also made sure the file permissions are set correctly, but I still get this error.

Has anyone else encountered this issue? What could be causing this error, and how can I resolve it?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Best regards,
Arya

[Rob]

Does the path contain any odd characters? I'm not aware of any problems with VBM but must admit I've not tried it in it's current form. 

[asp89]

Hi Rob,

The file path looks pretty standard to me—it's simply located at E:\VBM\prop. If you think of anything else, feel free to let me know!

Additionally for the airfoil naca16016.dat file, I haven't made any changes to it; I just downloaded it directly from the tutorial.

Best,
Arya

[Rob]

It's 34 now, https://ansyshelp.ansys.com/public/account/secured?returnurl=/Views/Secured/corp/v242/en/flu_tg/flu_tg_vbm.html but still ought to be much the same. 

I'm assuming you did unzip and aren't trying to open from the archive? 

[asp89]

Yes, I definitely unzipped the files. The mesh is working perfectly fine, and everything is going smoothly up to step 34.2.3.12, where it then displays the error in the VBM pre-processing

[Rob]

Odd, I've got an Intern checking the tutorial here so may know more tomorrow. 

[Rob]

It's working here. There's a note about the profile format in the manual - does the tutorial file agree with that? 

[asp89]

I think so here is dat file I have, it looks the same as the required format 
naca16016
2
cl
10000
0.01
19
-180    -0.726282
-8    -0.726282
-7    -0.622431
-6    -0.518581
-5    -0.41473
-4    -0.31088
-3    -0.207029
-2    -0.103178
-1    -0.000672425 
0    0.104523
1    0.208374
2    0.312224
3    0.405996
4    0.499767
5    0.590514
6    0.681261
7    0.749592
8    0.817924
180    0.817924
cd
10000
0.01
19
-180    0.052773
-8    0.052773
-7    0.0448664
-6    0.0399598
-5    0.0266581
-4    0.0180578
-3    0.00917065
-2    0.00714089
-1    0.00541159
0    0.00525418
1    0.00541159
2    0.00714089
3    0.00917065
4    0.0180578
5    0.0266581
6    0.0369598
7    0.0448664
8    0.052773
180    0.052773

[Rob]

No problems this side. Can you check the profile in Wordpad or Notepad++ (or whatever) for white space characters. Otherwise no idea as our intern had no problems.