Samuel Mailer 200943702 Analysis of Airflow through a Duct Mechanical Engineering 3 Year Semester 2

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Contents 1.0 Abstract................................................................................................................3 2.0 Methodology 2.1 Introduction to Gambit..........................................................................3 2.2 How the Model was created in Gambit.................................................3 2.3 Exporting the Mesh and Fluent Analysis...............................................4 2.4 Solving the Model in Fluent..................................................................5 2.5 Obtaining Vector and Contour Plots for the Solution...........................5 2.6 Changing the Flow Velocity.................................................................5 3.0 Results............................................................................................................6-12 4.0 Conclusions.....................................................................................................12

Abstract Fluid analysis is a very important part of many engineering applications. Fortunately the process has been made much easier by the continued development of Computational Fluid Dynamics computer software packages. In this report discussing how air flows through a convergingdiverging duct with a cylinder in the middle, both the Gambit and Fluent packages were utilised to first construct the duct and mesh it and then run the actual analysis of the fluid flowing. After Gambit had been used to construct and mesh the duct, the mesh was imported to Fluent where all of the settings and boundary conditions were set and the analysis was run. From this, pressure and velocity plots could be drawn up to give an idea of how they varied within the duct. Also graphs could be drawn up to go with the plots as mentioned, along with graphs of how the coefficients of lift and drag varied on the cylinder in the duct. After this original system had been analysed, the inlet velocity of the air was changed and the same process was run again to draw a comparison with the original results. The comparisons showed some very interesting results and showed a good representation of the phenomenon of vortex shedding, as the cylinder in the middle of the duct caused a turbulent wake within the duct. The results link together how the Reynolds and Strouhal number can be used to determine many characteristics of the system.

1.0 Introduction In this analysis, air is forced through a convergent-divergent duct with a cylinder positioned in the middle as shown in figure 1. The speed air flow is such that the flow stays laminar over the cylinder, which means that no Von-Karmen vortex shedding will occur in the wake of it. Fluent can now be used to solve the flow through the duct and over the cylinder as the flow regime is steady state. Analysis of this duct was carried out in 2D and all the dimensions are in relation to the diameter of the cylinder, which in this case was taken to be 0.1m (which is an important factor later on in the investigation). As shown in figure 1, the duct has one plane wall at the bottom, and the top wall being curved to make the duct convergent-divergent.

Figure 1

2.0 Methodology 2.1 Introduction to Gambit To start the analysis the duct had firstly to be modelled in the pre-processor package Gambit, which defines the geometry of the model and the boundary conditions for the situation such the fluid velocity and the drag generated on the walls. A model mesh is then created which can be imported into fluent for analysis. 2.2 How the Model was created in Gambit To start off the model, firstly the specified geometry had to be input from the dimensions from the given specifications. The coordinates for the outer edges of the ducts were plotted and then joined using the straight edge function. The curved upper wall was created using nurbs option putting a curve through three coordinates on the top edge. The cylinder in the centre was modelled using two points on the circumference of the cylinder and the centre point. The circle function was then used to create the cylinder in the centre of the duct. After the basic outline of the duct was complete, the programme needed to be told that the cylinder was a separate part in the duct so that when a mesh is created it fixes itself around

the cylinder and not over it. This was done by making the duct and cylinder two separate faces and then splitting them from one another to create one single face that could be easily meshed. Before meshing though, boundary layers need to be created on the upper and lower walls of the duct and also the outer edge of the cylinder. Once all of the specified boundary layer had been set to the corresponding edges, the edge meshes could now be put in place. The edge mesh is essential as this will give a very detailed analysis of how the air will flow around the cylinder and against the walls. The edge meshes are much finer meshes than the overall face mesh but this is obviously need to give the more detailed analysis in the specified areas as previously discussed. Each edge required a different grading of mesh to give the desired results. The upper and lower walls were Bi-exponent meshes, with a ratio of 0.4 and an interval count of 50. The inlet and outlet were also Bi-exponent meshes with a ratio 0.6 and an interval count of 30. The mesh around the cylinder was slightly different as it was a Successive ratio mesh with a ratio of 1 and an interval count of 50. After all of this had been applied, the final face mesh could be applied to the whole model, using pave type tri elements. The final face mesh is shown in figure 2, and is ready to be exported to fluent after the boundary conditions of all the edges, domain fluid and solver had all been set.

figure 2

2.3 Exporting the Mesh and Fluent Analysis Now the mesh could be exported into the CFD programme fluent and analysis of the fluid flow through the duct could be carried out. Firstly the correct solver parameters had to be set to ensure appropriate results are yielded, but in this case the desired settings were in fact the default Fluent settings. Then after a few more setting within the programme had been checked to ensure things like the turbulence for the model were specified. The material properties of the air flowing through the duct also had to be checked, and the operating conditions were set, so that the system was operating at atmospheric pressure, and gauge and vacuum pressure could be measured against it.

After the boundary conditions had been set at the inlet (velocity = 0.005m/s) and the outlet (gauge pressure = 0, operating at atmospheric pressure), the model could now start to be solved.

2.4 Solving the Model In Fluent Firstly the solution scheme is checked and the relaxation parameters are set, which for this problem are also the default settings in Fluent. Then the programme was told to initialize the solution from the inlet of the duct. After this, as part of the desired solution was for the residuals to be displayed as part of the results, the correct parameters had to be entered to give the correct graph. This meant that all the convergence criteria had to be set to 1e-5. Now the settings had to be entered to give the correct graphs and results for the lift and drag forces on the cylinder. For this to work, Fluent again had to be told to compute all of these from the inlet of the duct, which once selected gave all criteria and characteristics of the fluid at the duct entry. Finally the number of iterations that was needed for each of the graphs of the results was the final piece of information Fluent needed before solving the model. In this case 300 was an appropriate figure, but the solution could be interrupted and stop at a value before this to check certain values if needed by clicking cancel on the working form. While the solution is being carried out, a plot of thee residuals is shown at the same time, with each of the three plots on the graph steadily decreasing until 1e-5 is reached, which is the point where the solution should have converged. The residuals graph is shown in the results section as figure 10 along with both the cylinder drag and lift graphs which are figures 8 and 9 respectively. 2.5 Obtaining Vector and Contour Plots for the Solution Another useful part of the result was to use Fluent to give colour vector and contour plots of both the velocity in different areas of the moving air, and the pressure on the inside of different parts of the duct. The velocity vectors were given by using the display and then vector function and setting the processor to velocity. The result of this is shown in figure 4. The contour plots for both velocity and pressure were gained by using the display and then the contour function and selecting either velocity or pressure depending on which information was needed. The images displaying the results of this analysis are shown in figure 6 for velocity and figure 7 for pressure. 2.6 Changing the Flow Velocity As part of the investigation, a new velocity had to be chosen which would provide a new Reynolds number for which the Strouhal number was a constant value of 0.21. To get the new velocity, the relationship between the Reynolds number and the Strouhal number could be used. This relationship is shown below in figure 3, which is the graph of Reynolds v Strouhal numbers. From the graph, it isnt very clear but looking very closely it looks that for a Stouhal number of 0.21, the corresponding Reynolds number value is roughly 400. Now that the Reynolds number is known, this can be used to gain the desired velocity of the air. This is shown in the formula below; , where is the density of the air (1.225 ), u is the velocity of the air which

the equation is to be solved for, d is the diameter of the cylinder (0.1m) and Re is the new Reynolds

number which from the graph is shown as 400. Rearranging this formula and solving gives the new velocity of the air as 0.05843 .
Figure 3, Reynolds v Strouhal numbers Strouhal number of 0.21 Intersection point

Reynolds number of 400

Now this new value for velocity could be used to run the Fluent Analysis again for the model. This was done using exactly the procedure as discussed previously to obtain the wanted results, graphs and plots. (A point to note is that between the values of 400 and 6000 the graph of Reynolds v Strouhal number levels out, with the corresponding Stouhal number being 0.21. 400 was chosen for the analysis as smaller Reynolds numbers tend to generate better results for the way the Fluent has been set up for analysis of this model).

3.0 Results
From the initial analysis with the velocity set at 0.005m/s an interesting set of results we obtained. Firstly, from the velocity vector plot in figure 4, we can see how the velocity of the air is changing as it passes through the duct. From the index Figure 4 at the side of the figure, blue signifies slow moving air while moving up the scale towards red indicates that the air is moving faster. From the image we can see that fluid is moving fastest as it goes past the top side of the cylinder. This is to

be expected though as from basic fluid dynamics knowledge, it is known that with a decreasing throat area, the velocity of the fluid will increase. The diagram also shows that there are three areas where the air is either very slow moving or has completely stopped. This occurs at the very front of the cylinder, as at the very front of the cylinder the air cannot move around so it comes to a complete stop. This is known as the stagnation point. It is better shown in figures 6 and 7, which are the velocity and pressure contour plots respectively. The second area where the fluid becomes very slow moving is against the walls of the duct. This is due to friction between the fluid and the walls causing a big decrease in velocity. This is shown well by the results from fluent as the walls and around the cylinder had to be individually meshed to give there frictional effects. Another area of interest from the results is in the flow wake of the cylinder. From a closer look at figure 4, in figure 5, an interesting phenomenon is shown. The fluid is seen to be recalculating behind the cylinder in a vortices. This is due to the flow separating over the cylinder and causing a turbulent area behind the cylinder. This leads to an effect called von Karmen vortex shedding. This vortex shedding Figure 5 as the air reStagnation Point circulates is due
Re-circulation zone, causing multiple vortices. Turbulent wake Boundary Layer

to separation of the boundary layer over the cylinder. This effect is again also shown in the velocity contour plot in figure 6, shown below.

Figure 6

Stagnation Point

Figure 7

After the general analysis of the duct with coloured plots, Fluent can also be used to generate graphs of how the coefficients of drag and lift vary on the cylinder. Figures 8 and 9, show the graphs generated of the drag and lift coefficient respectively on the cylinder. Firstly looking the graph of the coefficient of drag we can see that at the start the coefficient of drag is infinitely high as this is at the stagnation point. The graph the rapidly decreases as the air moves quickly Figure 8 round the cylinder before fluctuating slightly and levelling off at the stagnation point. The graph here shows that the cylinder develops a coefficient of drag of just below one. Comparing this to figure 9, showing the coefficient of lift, we can see some similarities. Firstly the coefficient of lift is infinitely high right at the start at the stagnation point again as lift is immeasurable here. It then also drops sharply as the air moves around the cylinder generating lift before also fluctuating and levelling off at the separation point where the air is flowing in a level steady state. Another important graph generated
Figure 9 Figure 10

by fluent is the graph of the residuals as shown in figure 10. This shows that all the desired criteria have converged to the desired value as stated in the original set up ( ).

As we as these graph of the general analysis of the duct, Fluent can also be used to gain graphs of what is happening to the static pressure and velocity through the duct in the X and Y directions separately. First of all, looking at how the static pressure varies in the X and Y direction in figures 11 and 12 respectively. Looking at figure 11, it shows how the pressure starts of steady and then sharply increases as it hits the front of Figure 11 the cylinder and the stagnation point is generated. There is then a gap in the graph where a new low pressure reading appears in the wake of the cylinder. The graph then steadily increases as the fluid moves down the pipe as the flow effects begin to have more of an input. Figure 12 then shows the vertical static pressure within the duct. It shows that the highest pressures occurring at the walls of the duct, with the absolute highest pressure being above the cylinder, Figure 12 which follows as the smallest space is bound to have the highest pressure. The pressure then quickly decreases around the walls of the cylinder, and the part of the graph where there is no reading is where the cylinder is positioned in the duct so there will clearly be no reading there. As mentioned previously, Fluent can also be used to also give graphs of how velocity changes in the X and Y directions within the duct. Figure 13, shows how the velocity varies on the Y axis. This graph shows how the fastest moving fluid occurs exactly half way between the edge of the cylinder and its corresponding wall. We can also see that the slowest moving air occurs at the walls of the duct and edges of the cylinder. This is to be expected though at frictional effects will cause the air to slow down quickly.

Figure 13

These were the final results generated for air at a speed of 0.005 so as mentioned section2.6 of the methodology the speed was then changed in the Fluent set up to the new calculated speed of 0.05834 and the analysis was run again using the same process outlined in

the methodology. Firstly looking at the velocity vector graph shown in figure 14 and comparing it to the original the one generated in the original analysis (figure 4), some very distinctive differences are shown. It is shown that now the air is moving much more quickly above the cylinder than below. This has possibly been Figure 14 caused in this analysis due to a much higher velocity of the air passing through the duct, and from the laws of fluid dynamics it is known that the velocity of a fluid will increase with a decrease in the throat area. The real difference in the two systems comes when a closer look is taken at the wake of the cylinder. Comparing figures 4 and14, it shows that in the wake of cylinder in figure14 that the flow has become much more turbulent, and the vortex shedding effects in the wake continue much further down the duct as a much bigger wake is created. This is also due to the much higher velocity of the fluid from the Figure 15 original set-up. There are still some similarities between the two though as the flow effects at both the walls and edges of the cylinder look relatively similar. These effects are better shown in the velocity and pressure contour plots shown in figures16 and17 respectively. The much larger turbulent wake is Much larger turbulent wake well demonstrated in

Figure16 as it shows the wake extending much further down the duct and tailing off. The larger difference in velocities above and below the cylinder is shown more clearly as well. Comparing figures 7 and17 we can see how the pressure contour plots are very similar for both systems, with the only real difference coming in the fact that much narrower area of very low pressure is cause behind the cylinder with the air moving at a higher velocity.

Figure 16

Figure 17

Comparing the graphs of the drag and lift coefficients, shown in figures18 and19 respectively, similarities and differences can also be drawn up here. Firstly looking at the graph of the drag coefficient for the new system we can see how the actual shape of both the graphs in figures 8 and 18 is almost identical, but the difference comes in what the actual coefficient of drag finally levels out at. In figure 8 we can see that the final coefficient of drag for the cylinder ends up at roughly just below one, while in figure18 it shows a coefficient of drag at just below 0.5. The interesting
Figure 19

Figure 18

difference comes when the graphs of lift coefficients are compared. From figure 19 it is shown that the coefficient of lift never actually settles a constant value and is constantly fluctuating. This may highlight a problem doing this kind of analysis in fluent as with this new speed, we are dealing with a turbulent flow around the cylinder and from the methodology it is stated that fluent has been set up to model and analyse laminar Figure 20 flow. Turbulent flows are complex and difficult to do calculations on though. This point enforced when the graph of the residuals, shown in figure20, is examined. From this we can see that none of the solutions actually converge to , but instead level off at a value much higher than this. This means that a much less accurate solution has been calculated but this may be due to the reason discussed previously.

From the new analysis at the new speed of 0.05834m/s, graphs of static pressure and velocity in the X and Y axis separately were also generated. Comparing figures21 and22 of the static pressure at 0.005m/s to the static pressure graphs in figues11 and12 we can see that there is very little diffenreces apart form the actual values of the pressures.
Figure 21 Figure 22

The graphs that show a real difference in the two systems are the ones showing how the velocity changes on both the X and Y axis along the duct. From figure23 and24, we can see that when it
Figure 23

Figure 24

comes to calculating the velocity along the X axis, a problem occurs in the area directly behind the pipe and Fluent cannot get an accurate reading on what the velocity is actually supposed to be. This again is probably down to the fact that the flow has gone turbulent at this point and Fluent has been set to only work with laminar flows.

4.0 Conclusions From this Fluent analysis of this duct we can see how changing the velocity of the fluid passing through the duct can generate very different results. When it comes to pressure areas within the duct, everything stays pretty similar regardless of velocity, but looking at velocity vector and contour plots, it is proved that increasing the inlet velocity has major effects on what happens inside the pipe and how a phenomenon called vortex shedding can be achieved. It seems that increasing the velocity increases the frequency of vortex shedding, and from the formula we can see that as the inlet velocity is increased to 0.05834m/s, the frequency of vortex shedding is 0.36Hz.