Tutorials Report
Computational Fluid Dynamics – CH5101
Name – Ahmed Faculty – Dr Vikrant Verma
ID -- CH20MTECH11007 Date -- 08/11/2021
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Tutorial 1: --
Problem statement – Fluid Flow in a 2D pipe.
The aim of this simulation is to obtain the fluid flow data and velocity profiles in a pipe.
For the said simulation, the continuity equation and the momentum balance equations are
simultaneously solved to converge to a steady state solution. For the purpose of saving
computational expenditure, the simulation is run in a 2D domain, with the following
assumptions.
Assumptions –
Laminar flow
Constant Viscosity
Neglect backflow
Incompressible fluid
Neglecting energy equations
Schematic and Mesh –
A pipe of dimensions, radius 2 m and length 40 m are considered.
For a 2D pipe, the cross-section of a pipe would be a simple rectangle with the said dimensions.
4m
Inlet Velocity 0.005 m/s
40 m
The mesh created in this case is refined for finer mesh elements, thus acquiring more accurate
data.
Figure 1 – 2D Pipe Mesh
Initial Value and Boundary Conditions –
For initialisation, we use standard initialisation for this simulation. However, hybrid
initialisation can also be used if the convergence is too sensitive to initial values.
With a go-to guess for the start of the inlet velocity, we set the initial x and y component of the
velocities to zero (0 m/s). Similarly, the initial gauge pressure is also set to zero (0 Pa).
For the boundary conditions, apart from the zero velocity at the wall (no slip condition at the
walls), the other parameters are defined as follows –
1.) Inlet velocity at the left entrance = 0.0005 m/sec
2.) Exit gauge pressure at the exit on the right boundary = 0 Pa
3.) Zero velocity or no slip condition at the walls.
Setup and parameters –
The solver for this simulation relies on pressure based solving with the aim to converge solution
at steady state condition. Also, the following conditions and parameters were set for this
simulation.
1) Study type – Steady state
2) Viscous model – Laminar
3) Domain material – Water (liquid)
4) Inlet velocity – 0.0005 m/sec
5) Pressure – velocity coupling scheme: SIMPLE
6) spatial discretisation
a. Gradient – least square cell based
b. Pressure – Second order
c. Momentum – Second order upwind
Results and Analysis –
The simulation is run with a maximum limit of 1000 iterations with reporting and update
interval on 1. The solution was converged in just 107 iterations, with the standard error
tolerance fulfilling the criterion.
Velocity Profile Graph –
Figure 2
Figure 3
Pressure Profile Graph –
Total Pressure Static Pressure
Remarks –
The results depict the expected velocity profile of a laminar flow of a fluid in a 2D pipe. The
parabolic profile is clearly visible in figure 3. The results are in agreement with the theoretical
profile defined as follows.
Where vmax is the maximum velocity at the centerline of
the pipe and ‘r’ is the distance from the centerline. R is
the radius of the 2D pipe.