FLUENT: THEORY GUIDE

CU 1: PHNG PHP EULER

1.7.1 Euler Equations
For inviscid flows, ANSYS FLUENT solves the Euler equations. The mass conservation
equation is the same as for a laminar flow, but the momentum and energy conservation equations
are reduced due to the absence of molecular diffusion.
In this section, the conservation equations for inviscid flow in an inertial (non-rotating) reference
frame are presented. The equations that are applicable to non-inertial reference frames are
described in Chapter 2. The conservation equations relevant for species transport and other
models will be discussed in the chapters where those models are described.


The Mass Conservation Equation

The equation for conservation of mass, or continuity equation, can be written as follows:

(1.71)

Equation 1.7-1 is the general form of the mass conservation equation and is valid for
incompressible as well as compressible flows. The source is the mass added to the
continuous phase from the dispersed second phase (e.g., due to vaporization of liquid droplets)
and any user-defined sources.
For 2D axisymmetric geometries, the continuity equation is given by

(1.72)

where is the axial coordinate, is the radial coordinate, is the axial velocity, and is the
radial velocity.


Momentum Conservation Equations

Conservation of momentum is described by

(1.73)

where is the static pressure and and are the gravitational body force and external body
forces (e.g., forces that arise from interaction with the dispersed phase), respectively. also
contains other model-dependent source terms such as porous-media and user-defined sources.
For 2D axisymmetric geometries, the axial and radial momentum conservation equations are
given by

(1.74)

and

(1.75)

where

(1.76)

Energy Conservation Equation

Conservation of energy is described by

(1.77)



CU 2: PHNG PHP RUNGE-KUTTA
18.5.4 Steady-State Flow Solution Methods
The coupled set of governing equations (Equation 18.5-6) in ANSYS FLUENT is discretized in
time for both steady and unsteady calculations. In the steady case, it is assumed that time
marching proceeds until a steady-state solution is reached. Temporal discretization of the
coupled equations is accomplished by either an implicit or an explicit time-marching algorithm.
These two algorithms are described below.

Explicit Formulation
In the explicit scheme a multi-stage, time-stepping algorithm [ 146] is used to discretize the time
derivative in Equation 18.5-6. The solution is advanced from iteration to iteration with
an -stage Runge-Kutta scheme, given by

where and is the stage counter for the -stage scheme.
is the multi-stage coefficient for the stage. The residual is computed from the
intermediate solution and, for Equation 18.5-6, is given by

(18.5-13)
The time step is computed from the CFL (Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy) condition

(18.5-14)


where is the cell volume, is the face area, and is the maximum of the local
eigenvalues defined by Equation 18.5-9.
For steady-state solutions, convergence acceleration of the explicit formulation can be achieved
with the use of local time stepping, residual smoothing, and full-approximation storage
multigrid.
Local time stepping is a method by which the solution at each control volume is advanced in
time with respect to the cell time step, defined by the local stability limit of the time-stepping
scheme.
Residual smoothing, on the other hand, increases the bound of stability limits of the time-
stepping scheme and hence allows for the use of a larger CFL value to achieve fast convergence
(Section 18.5.4).
The convergence rate of the explicit scheme can be accelerated through use of the full-
approximation storage (FAS) multigrid method described in Section 18.6.4.
By default, ANSYS FLUENT uses a 3-stage Runge-Kutta scheme based on the work by Lynn [
211] for steady-state flows that use the density-based explicit solver.

Implicit Formulation
In the implicit scheme, an Euler implicit discretization in time of the governing equations
(Equation 18.5-6) is combined with a Newton-type linearization of the fluxes to produce the
following linearized system in delta form [ 370]:

18.5.5 Unsteady Flows Solution Methods
For time-accurate calculations, explicit and implicit time-stepping schemes are available. (The
time-implicit approach is also referred to as "dual time stepping''.)
Explicit Time Stepping
The explicit time stepping approach, is available only for the explicit scheme described above.
The time step is determined by the CFL condition. To maintain time accuracy of the solution the
explicit time stepping employs the same time step in each cell of the domain (this is also known
as global-time step), and with preconditioning disabled. By default, ANSYS FLUENT uses a 4-
stage Runge-Kutta scheme for unsteady flows.

Implicit Time Stepping (Dual-Time formulation)

The implicit-time stepping method (also known as dual-time formulation) is available in the
density-based explicit and implicit formulation.
When performing unsteady simulations with implicit-time stepping (dual-time stepping),
ANSYS FLUENT uses a low Mach number time-derivative unsteady preconditioner to provide
accurate results both for pure convective processes (e.g., simulating unsteady turbulence) and for
acoustic processes (e.g., simulating wave propagation) [ 350, 263].

Table 18.5.1: Summary of the Density-Based Solver
Solution Method Density-Based Solver - Explicit
Formulation
Density-Based Solver -
Implicit Formulation


Steady-State
- 3-stages Runge-Kutta
- local time step
- time-derivative preconditioning
- FAS
- local time step
- time-derivative
preconditioning

Unsteady -
Explicit Time
Stepping
- 4-stages Runge-Kutta
- global time step
- no time-derivative reconditioning
- No FAS
N/A

Unsteady -
Implicit Time
Stepping
(dual-time
formulation)
First Order
- dual-time formulation
- Physical time: first order Euler
backward
- preconditioned pseudo-time
derivative
- inner iteration: explicit pseudo-time
marching, 3-stage Runge-Kutta
- dual-time formulation
- Physical time: first order
Euler backward
- preconditioned pseudo-time
derivative
- inner iteration: implicit
pseudo-time marching

Unsteady -
Implicit Time
Stepping
(dual-time
formulation)
Second Order
- dual-time formulation
- Physical time: second order Euler
backward
- preconditioned pseudo-time
derivative
- inner iteration: explicit pseudo-time
marching, 3-stage Runge-Kutta
- dual-time formulation
- Physical time: second order
Euler backward
- preconditioned pseudo-time
derivative
- inner iteration: implicit
pseudo-time marching


CU 3: PHNG PHP MULTIGRID
18.6 Multigrid Method
The ANSYS FLUENT solver contains two forms of multigrid: algebraic (AMG) and full-
approximation storage (FAS). AMG is an essential component of both the pressure-based and
density-based implicit solvers, while FAS is an important, but optional, component of the
density-based explicit solver. (Note that when the density-based explicit solver is used, AMG
will also be used, since the scalar equations (e.g., turbulence) are solved using the approach
described in Section 18.2.)
This section describes the mathematical basis of the multigrid approach. Common aspects of
AMG and FAS are presented first, followed by separate sections that provide details unique to
each method.
18.6.1 Approach
18.6.2 Multigrid Cycles
18.6.3 Algebraic Multigrid (AMG)
18.6.4 Full-Approximation Storage (FAS) Multigrid

18.6.1 Approach
ANSYS FLUENT uses a multigrid scheme to accelerate the convergence of the solver by
computing corrections on a series of coarse grid levels. The use of this multigrid scheme can
greatly reduce the number of iterations and the CPU time required to obtain a converged
solution, particularly when your model contains a large number of control volumes.


The Need for Multigrid
Implicit solution of the linearized equations on unstructured meshes is complicated by the fact
that there is no equivalent of the line-iterative methods that are commonly used on structured
meshes. Since direct matrix inversion is out of the question for realistic problems and "whole-
field'' solvers that rely on conjugate-gradient (CG) methods have robustness problems associated
with them, the methods of choice are point implicit solvers like Gauss-Seidel and ILU . Although
the Gauss-Seidel and ILU schemes rapidly remove local (high-frequency) errors in the solution,
global (low-frequency) errors are reduced at a rate inversely related to the mesh size. Thus, for a
large number of nodes, the solver "stalls'' and the residual reduction rate becomes prohibitively
low.
The multi-stage scheme used in the density-based explicit solver can efficiently remove local
(high-frequency) errors as well. That is, the effect of the solution in one cell is communicated to
adjacent cells relatively quickly. However, the scheme is less effective at reducing global (low-
frequency) errors-errors which exist over a large number of control volumes. Thus, global
corrections to the solution across a large number of control volumes occur slowly, over many
iterations. This implies that performance of the multi-stage scheme will deteriorate as the number
of control volumes increases.
Multigrid techniques allow global error to be addressed by using a sequence of successively
coarser meshes. This method is based upon the principle that global (low-frequency) error
existing on a fine mesh can be represented on a coarse mesh where it again becomes accessible
as local (high-frequency) error: because there are fewer coarse cells overall, the global
corrections can be communicated more quickly between adjacent cells. Since computations can
be performed at an exponentially decaying expense in both CPU time and memory storage on
coarser meshes, there is the potential for very efficient elimination of global error. The fine-grid
relaxation scheme or "smoother'', in this case either the point-implicit linear solvers (Section
18.6.3) or the explicit multi-stage scheme, is not required to be particularly effective at reducing
global error and can be tuned for efficient reduction of local error.

The Basic Concept in Multigrid
Consider the set of discretized linear (or linearized) equations given by
(18.6-1)
where is the exact solution. Before the solution has converged there will be a defect
associated with the approximate solution :
(18.6-2)
We seek a correction to such that the exact solution is given by
(18.6-3)
Substituting Equation 18.6-3 into Equation 18.6-1 gives

(18.6-4)

(18.6-5)
Now using Equations 18.6-2 and 18.6-5 we obtain
(18.6-6)
which is an equation for the correction in terms of the original fine level operator and the
defect . Assuming the local (high-frequency) errors have been sufficiently damped by the
relaxation scheme on the fine level, the correction will be smooth and therefore more
effectively solved on the next coarser level.

Restriction and Prolongation
Solving for corrections on the coarse level requires transferring the defect down from the fine
level (restriction), computing corrections, and then transferring the corrections back up from the
coarse level (prolongation). We can write the equations for coarse level corrections as
(18.6-7)
where is the coarse level operator and the restriction operator responsible for transferring
the fine level defect down to the coarse level. Solution of Equation 18.6-7 is followed by an
update of the fine level solution given by
(18.6-8)
where is the prolongation operator used to transfer the coarse level corrections up to the fine
level.

Unstructured Multigrid
The primary difficulty with using multigrid on unstructured meshes is the creation and use of the
coarse grid hierarchy. On a structured mesh, the coarse meshes can be formed simply by
removing every other mesh line from the fine meshes and the prolongation and restriction
operators are simple to formulate (e.g., injection and bilinear interpolation).
The difficulties of applying multigrid on unstructured meshes are overcome in a separate fashion
by each of the two multigrid methods used in ANSYS FLUENT. While the basic principles
discussed so far and the cycling strategy described in Section 18.6.2 are the same, the techniques
for construction of restriction, prolongation, and coarse mesh operators are different, as
discussed in Section 18.6.3 and Section 18.6.4 for the AMG and FAS methods, respectively.


CU 4: DNG DI M, BNG M, TRN M
1.6.1 When to Use the Compressible Flow Model
Compressible flows can be characterized by the value of the Mach number:
(1.6-1)


Here, is the speed of sound in the gas:

(1.6-2)


and is the ratio of specific heats .
When the Mach number is less than 1.0, the flow is termed subsonic. At Mach numbers much
less than 1.0 ( or so), compressibility effects are negligible and the variation of the gas
density with pressure can safely be ignored in your flow modeling. As the Mach number
approaches 1.0 (which is referred to as the transonic flow regime), compressibility effects
become important. When the Mach number exceeds 1.0, the flow is termed supersonic, and may
contain shocks and expansion fans which can impact the flow pattern significantly. ANSYS
FLUENT provides a wide range of compressible flow modeling capabilities for subsonic,
transonic, and supersonic flows.