Inflation layer not working in certain geometries in ANSYS meshing tool

Question

I am trying to implement an inflation layer between two geometries in my mesh using ANSYS, and I am confused about the procedure.

I found online (see the answer from Gopinath NK on 1/17/22 ) that in the ANSYS meshing tool you cannot combine face meshing with inflation. So I tried to remove the face sizings thinking that was what was being referred to but it gave mixed results which I'll explain below.

Second, I saw here that to create inflation I might need to employ named selections instead of selecting the two geometries (a body and a face) but this also gave mixed results.

As to my mixed results , I successfully got an inflation layer to work for a cylindrical body inside another cylindrical one (see images below). The blue larger cylinder is the body (red arrow), and the green circles are the edges of the small cylinder inside (green arrows). I created this inflation layer successfully.

However, when I try to create an inflation layer between the Rotating Zone (larger cylinder) and the Stationary Zone the inflation layer fails. This occurs as soon as I select the rectangular larger body. I didn't bother to finish selecting the other faces since next to Active it says "No, Invalid Method". The same thing occurs if I select the Structured Zone (smallest cylinder) and the faces of the wing (angled plate subtracted from the Structured Zone). So I really no clue what is causing this since it seems to occur as soon as I select the outer larger body geometry. Maybe I'm not selecting the right set of faces, or there is something else that is leading to this.

Thank you

Answer 1

So it turns out that the message saying "No, Invalid Method" is referring to a Hex Dominant method I created. There are certain mesh methods that inflation does not like to work with, and I haven't been able to find any reason why. I hope anyone using the ANSYS Mesher finds this helpful.