# Cycloidal propeller **URL:** \ **Category:** Fluid Flow / CFD\ **Created:** [May 15, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977 "2017-05-15T13:01:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/asimon/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/asimon)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 1:01pm UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/1 "2017-05-15T13:01:32Z")
Hello, to my internship I have to simulate a cycloidal propeller ( Operation in this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyJHX6MZOWg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyJHX6MZOWg) ). I have to set up a Rotating zone in a Rotating zone, the probleme is that a center of rotation must be declared but in that case, this center of rotation will move. Do you know if it is possible to set up? A second problem, I already do a cycloidal propeller but without pitch control and I have some issues, I don’t know how to do a rotating mesh (in fact I’m not sur that a cylinder creates with “topology entity set” around blades will rotate too). For now, I just did a big “Surface refinment” for blades. ![](https://www.simscale.com/forum/uploads/default/original/2X/9/968cc5c577094d4d6abcb3319feec531171f12a3.PNG) Do you know if I can do a rotating Mesh? I don’t if it’s related to the Mesh but my simulations with just a “big” surface refinment are aborted with this message: “mpirun noticed that process rank 3 with on node 61a76d21c8c6 exited on signal 15 (Terminated)” Do you know what that mean? I googled it but I found nothing with “signal 15”, just with others numbers. Thank you (sorry for bad english) Adrien ---
**Author:** ![anon18194957](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/anon18194957/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@anon18194957](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/anon18194957)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 8:46am UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/2 "2017-05-19T08:46:43Z")
Hi @asimon, Thanks for posting your question and welcome to simscale 🙂 I think you are on the right track by looking at the [propeller project](https://www.simscale.com/projects/asimon/propeller_1/) from @anon62721193. If you ignore the pitch control, and use a rotating mesh (with AMI) this should work. Although keep in mind that AMI is more computationally expensive than [MRF](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/definition-of-mrf-rotating-zone/41912). To move ahead with this, can you share your project link publically so that we can take a look at your current settings? Very interesting project btw! Cheers, Anna ---
**Author:** ![asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/asimon/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/asimon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 9:27am UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/3 "2017-05-19T09:27:58Z")
Thanks for this answer, first mistake found: my boundary conditions on blades were a non mobile wall. You can see my project here: > **[SimScale Login](https://www.simscale.com/workbench/?pid=4812941713060328553#tab_0-0)** > > Log in to your SimScale account. SimScale makes high-fidelity engineering simulation technically and economically accessible. At any scale. In the cloud. (some of names are in french, sorry for that. in English pale=blade) Cheers ---
**Author:** ![anon18194957](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/anon18194957/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@anon18194957](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/anon18194957)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 10:29am UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/4 "2017-05-23T10:29:54Z")
Hi @asimon, To update you on where we are - I’ve ran the simulation and it crashed. I suspect it’s due to the current quality of the mesh. You can see that the cells on the edges of the MRF region are not smooth. ![](https://www.simscale.com/forum/uploads/default/original/2X/3/3beee94b2c1f03c39d59bebc5ff82d8a9a1c28db.png) So I took your geometry and filleted the edges of the MRF cylinder and will see if this helps us get a better mesh quality. ![](https://www.simscale.com/forum/uploads/default/original/2X/b/b494c036e71611cd7d7b85d3416fce6897d5a708.jpg) Best, Anna ---
**Author:** ![anon18194957](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/anon18194957/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@anon18194957](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/anon18194957)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2017, 7:54am UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/5 "2017-05-29T07:54:37Z")
Hi @asimon, I’ve made some more progress on this ([Voith 2 by AnnaFless | SimScale](https://www.simscale.com/projects/AnnaFless/voith_2/)). I ran it as an AMI, up to .09 seconds before I exceeded the maximum runtime which I set to 200000 seconds. By increasing this runtime, you should be able to capture up to .25 seconds for a transient run. ![propeller](https://www.simscale.com/forum/uploads/default/original/2X/8/874f5389b8a5bc1075379f878f1b6d37dd02dc20.gif) Cheers, Anna ---
**Author:** ![asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/asimon/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/asimon)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2017, 1:59pm UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/6 "2017-06-02T13:59:19Z")
Hi Thanks a lot, I will look at it, sorry for my late answer, I was working on something else last weeks ---
**Author:** ![asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/asimon/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/asimon)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 8:23am UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/7 "2017-06-06T08:23:30Z")
Hi @anon18194957 I ran your propeller, it is still runnig in fact, and it looks to work (Force plot is ugly but I think it is normal on the first rotation of the propeler). I have another question about the pitch control, each blade has to rotate during the rotation, but I have to put “Rotation Center” on “Rotating Zone” and in this case this rotation center moves. It looks like the mesh moves with the AMI simulation, if I put as a “Rotation center” it position at t=0s, do you know if this rotation center will move (as the mesh)? Cheers Adrien ---
**Author:** ![anon18194957](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/anon18194957/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@anon18194957](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/anon18194957)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2017, 1:29pm UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/8 "2017-06-08T13:29:47Z")
Hi @asimon, Regarding the pitch control, rotation of the blade is not currently possible 🙁 We only support fixed center and axis of rotation. We have a section in our forum for Feature Requests ([Vote for features! - SimScale CAE Forum](https://www.simscale.com/forum/c/feedback/feature-requests)) if you’d like to request this functionality for future versions of SimScale. The current setup, with AMI mesh rotation is the best we can do for now - I hope that’s ok for your internship project. All the best, Anna ---
**Author:** ![asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/letter_avatar/asimon/32/5_5575768a8748004e209b776fc1b2916d.png) [@asimon](https://www.simscale.com/forum/u/asimon)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2017, 7:32am UTC](https://www.simscale.com/forum/t/cycloidal-propeller/68977/9 "2017-06-09T07:32:38Z")
Hi @anon18194957 I can’t blame you for that, your website allowed me to have a first CFD result whereas my company didn’t want to buy a CFD software, so thanks a lot for that and also for your help. By the way I’m sorry, it looks like I exceeded the limit with this simulation. For my internship, don’t worry, in fact I have to make an algorithme with Matlab to determine propeller performance, CFD was just a way to check my results but I found experimental results few weeks ago so I don’t even need CFD (I continued this study because I really liked to do it). For the request, I will do it even if I don’t need it because I think it can be a good idea for this software, especially since Darrieus wind turbine with pitch controle come back to some offshore wind turbine project. Thanks a lot again, to your company and especially to you for your help Adrien