Turbulent Flow Over the Ahmed Body

Handed out: April 3

Report Due: Thursday, April 23, 5:00PM (strict deadline)
Case:
For your final project you will study the flow around a car-like body. The Ahmed body is widely
studied because while it is geometrically simple, the flow contains complex interaction of the separation and the total drag. Information about the Ahmed body can be found at the following locations: http://www.ercoftac.org/fileadmin/user_upload/bigfiles/sig15/database/9.4/,
http://www.ercoftac.org/fileadmin/user_upload/bigfiles/sig15/database/9.4/data/Ahmed_
25_LDA.txt, and http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/110233.
You will study the case of the 25 deg slant angle at a Reynolds number of 2.7 million.
Your objective is the predict the drag, but you will also examine the velocity field near the rear
of the vehicle to investigate and explain any differences between the experimentally measured drag
and your prediction.

Figure
1. from
http://fd.tu-berlin.de/en/research/projects/
flow-control/ahmed-body-flow-control/
Computational Details:
You may use either the pimpleFoam or simpleFoam solvers. You may use any turbulence model
that you choose, although I suggest Spalart-Allmaras or k SST for starters. You may generate
the computational grid using either Pointwise or snappyHexMesh.
Choose your target near-wall spacing wisely. Answer the following questions before you start, and
confirm your answers in the discussion of your report. Can you resolve the viscous sub-layer? If
you use a wall-function, what are its limitations and requirements for most accurate application?
I also suggest that you start with a coarse grid, that is less than 500,000 cells, and then for your
final results, use a grid that is in the range of 1-10 million cells. Test locally on the coarse grid
first, and then use stampede for your fine grid simulations.

NA 423

Introduction to Numerical Hydrodynamics

Winter 2015

Final Report:
Your final report is due April 23, at 5:00 PM. You can submit it to my mailbox. I want you
to provide the most accurate results that you are capable of obtaining. Your report is limited
to 6 pages. Please be thorough in your write-up, use graphs judiciously, and formatting is very
important to clearly communicate your results.
Make sure that you compare your predicted drag coefficient with coefficient(s) from the literature.
Also, plot and discuss the velocity profiles along the rear slant of the vehicle. Neglect the supporting
legs in your computational model. Make sure that you account for the influence of the supporting
legs when comparing with experiments.
As part of your report, select one of the following topics to investigate and include in your write-up.
It is important that you clearly describe the extra work that you do, and that you generate results
that demonstrate your theoretical understanding of the topic that you choose.
(1) Discuss and test different discretization schemes.
(2) Discuss and test the suitability of the turbulence model by comparing two different models.
You could test a low-Re number model, or test a different wall function model. There is a
wall function for the Spalart-Allmaras model, and the standard k SST model. Also, you
could examine different freestream values of the turbulence quantities.
(3) Scalability. Test how the solver scales on different numbers of processors. This should
be done for the conjugate-gradient and the GAMG linear-system solvers for the pressure
equation. You could test the same grid on a different number of processors, or grids with
differing numbers of points on the same number of processors. Note that you dont need to
run for a long time when doing scalability study.
The grade for your final project will be assigned using the following points breakdown: 20% format,
60% discussion of results and work, 20% extra topic.