Learning Forum

[r.sakthidharan]

I am modelling a small two-bladed propeller for CFD in ANSYS 2026 R1 Student. The propeller was reconstructed in Fusion 360 using lofted airfoil sections, exported as STEP/SAT, imported into ANSYS, and Boolean-subtracted from a rotating cylindrical fluid domain for Fluent. Inserted one first to see whats the problem.

The issue is that meshing the rotating domain fails. The main errors are:

“one or more entities failed to mesh”
“one or more surfaces cannot be meshed with acceptable quality”
“the current meshing options and settings cannot generate a mesh”

When I inspect the failed region, ANSYS highlights the propeller trailing-edge area and sometimes the root/tip area. The blade wall faces are selectable after the Boolean subtract, but the surface mesh still fails around these thin/sliver faces.

Things I have tried:

• Reduced the loft from 30+ airfoil profiles to about 10 profiles.
• Removed guide rails from the loft.
• Blunted/rounded the trailing edge in the airfoil sketches before lofting.
• Exported clean STEP/SAT files with only the final solid body.
• Turned off automatic inflation.
• Tried automatic Virtual Topology, but it created 0 virtual faces/edges.
• Tried body/edge sizing.
• Tried stitching the separate trailing-edge surface in SpaceClaim, but it did not solve the issue.
  
  
  Please help
  
  SCreenshots:
  
  

[Rob]

Have a look in Connections and see if it's picked up the upper and lower surfaces as being a contact pair. Assuming it has, delete the Contact in Connections. There's a function to help Mech users (they need it! ;P )  that causes a few issues with surfaces in close proximity (airfoils) because the profile thickness is small relative to the domain. 

[r.sakthidharan]

This is what is under contact regions, tried deleting it and then meshing, mesh still fails at the trailing edge profile.

[Rob]

They're correct. 

How many bodies have you got - ie can you check the blade is a void? Also look at the sizing options, are you resolving the blade?