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ANSYS FLUENT Beginner
All these files are available in the download section of this tutorial. You need LearnCAx
account to download all the files. If you do not have an account, create your FREE LearnCAx
account here.
LearnCAx-CFD-Tut-Backward-Facing-Step-Input-Mesh.zip
The final ANSYS FLUENT solution files are also provided for your reference. Following zip file
contains ANSYS FLUENT case and data for final converged solution.
LearnCAx-CFD-Tut-Backward-Facing-Step-Solution-Files.zip
Download both the files in one directory. Unzip each file. This would create following
directory structure and files as shown in Figure 1
To keep the copy of original input files, its always a good practice to copy the content in
your working directory. Create your own working directory and copy entire content from
unzipped directory to your working directory. You need to select this as working directory
when you start ANSYS FLUENT.
3 Tutorial Introduction
Many industrial application involves flow separation and reattachment. To illustrate the
above phenomenon, flow simulation over backward facing step is considered. This tutorial is
This tutorial is a well-known academic problem that one should solve while learning CFD.
One of the objective is to learn the process of solving backward step problem, but the
important objective is to understand standards of getting solution for such physics. There is
large literature available for analytical and experimental methods for this problem. One
should validate the CFD results with such available data to get confidence on CFD
simulation.
Following are few of the resources from where you can obtain the data for validation:
1. http://turbmodels.larc.nasa.gov/backstep_val.html
2. http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/wind/valid/backstep/backstep01/backstep01.html
3. T. Lee and D. Mateescu. Experimental and Numerical Investigation of 2-D Backward-
Facing Step Flow, Journal of Fluids and Structures (1998) 12, Page No: 703 716
4. B. F. Armaly, F. Dursts, J. C. F. Pereira and B. Schonung. Experimental and Theoretical
Investigation of Backward-Facing Step Flow, Journal of Fluid Mechanics 01/1983; Page
No: 473 - 496.
4 Objective of Tutorial
The main objective of this tutorial is to provide step by step guide to solve backward facing
step problem using ANSYS FLUENT software. All the steps right from providing inputs for
flow simulation to post-processing and result interpretation are covered in this tutorial. The
flow device used for this tutorial is a simple duct with backward facing step but the same
steps and physics also applies to much more complicated shapes and devices.
5 Prerequisite
Following are the prerequisites for using this tutorial:
6 Benefits of Tutorial
After this tutorial, you should be able to:
Fully developed flow enters the domain from left. When the flow reaches the step, because
of expansion of flow channel, pressure gradient exists, it detaches and a recirculation zone is
formed as shown in Figure 2. A turbulent boundary layer encounters a sudden back step,
causing flow separation. Later the flow eventually reattaches to the bottom wall.
The flow over a backward facing step provides an example of above said flow field. The flow
separation and reattachment phenomenon are studied using velocity vector and XY plots.
The plots of shear stress vs recirculation length (normalized by step height) is generated.
The CFD domain consists of inlet, backward facing step and an outlet. A developed steady
turbulent flow enters through the inlet, passes over the step where it detaches from the
boundary and further reattaches at a particular length.
Air enters inlet at velocity of 0.3781 m/s, travels through a distance of 0.4 m (inlet channel
length) and passes through step of height 0.04 m (step height H). Outlet channel length is
Density of air is 1.23 kg/m3 while dynamic viscosity is 1.86 * 10-5 Ns/m2. From this given data
the calculated Reynolds number at inlet is 5000.
10 Geometry
The geometry details are given in Figure 3.
11 Mesh
Structured multiblock meshing method is used to create all quadrilateral mesh in the
domain. Total mesh count is 0.099 million. This mesh is generate using ANSYS ICEM CFD
software and the mesh file has been provided to you as an input for this tutorial. To capture
flow physics properly, the mesh has been refined at the walls and step. It is advised that you
examine the mesh and see the mesh feature. The important areas you should look are near
all wall boundaries and backward step. Mesh plays a critical role in accuracy of the solution.
Although mesh is provided as input for this tutorial, its very important that you understand
design of the mesh for this problem.
The entire mesh along with the close view of mesh near the step is also shown in Figure 4.
Working Directory path can be given using Working Directory option. Select the
working directory you have created before
The instructions in this tutorial assumes that you have left navigation pan activated. If not,
change your layout settings and make sure that you have left navigation is activated, as
shown in Figure 6. To change the layout:
Scaling the mesh is necessary in case if you have created a geometry (or CFD domain) in
other than m scale. This is a general step that you need to follow once the mesh is imported
in ANSYS FLUENT. In this tutorial, the original CFD domain and mesh is created in m scale. So
you need not do any further scaling of the mesh.
You need not to perform this step for this tutorial. The mesh is provided as an input and
does not contain any bad quality or negative elements. In case if you have generated mesh,
this step is necessary to check if mesh is of acceptable quality or not. As shown in Figure 8,
following are the steps to check the mesh:
13 Material Selection
Go to Materials Air Create/Edit
Figure 13 shows different zones, their zone labels in the mesh and required type of
boundary condition. You can display the mesh and see what kind of zones are available in
the mesh. Use following instructions to provide appropriate boundary conditions.
Go to Boundary Conditions. Select outlet zone in the zone list. Select Type as
pressure-outlet and click Edit
In the Pressure Outlet panel, set the Backflow Direction Specification Method as
Normal to Boundary
Select the Turbulence specification methods as Intensity and Hydraulic Diameter.
Set the Turbulence intensity as 3 % and hydraulic diameter as 0.24 m
Click OK
Refer Figure 15 for further details
Confirm that the boundary condition type for inlet_channel, outlet_channel, step,
top_wall is wall. As shown in Figure 16, by default it should be wall, if not, change
the conditions to wall
Keep all the default settings in the Wall boundary condition panel
Confirm that the boundary condition for int_v_fluid is interior. If not, change that to
interior. This zone contains all the interior boundaries in the volume mesh
In the Solution Methods panel keep all Solution methods as shown in Figure 18.
They are the default settings given by ANSYS FLUENT. If you have some different
settings, change them to what is shown in Figure 18
Go to Monitors
Click on Create under the Surface Monitors section
In the Surface Monitor panel
Enter name as average-pressure-inlet
Select Report Type as Area-Weighted Average
Select Field Variable as Pressure and sub field as Static Pressure
Under Surfaces, select Inlet
Click on Print to Console, Plot and Write.
Enter File name as average-pressure-inlet
Click OK to close the panel
To create surface monitor for velocity at outlet, click on Create in Surface Monitors
Panel
In the Surface Monitor panel enter name as average-velocity-outlet
Select Report Type as Area-Weighted Average
Select Field Variable as Velocity and sub field as Velocity Magnitude
Under Surfaces select outlet
Click on Print to Console, Plot and Write
Enter File name as average-velocity-outlet
Click OK to close the panel
Every CFD problem needs an initial solution to start with. The accuracy of your initial guess
will determine how much time it would take to get converged solution (and sometime you
are not going get the converged solution at all). We can provide uniform initialization or
provide a non-uniform initial guess using Patching. ANSYS FLUENT has given some methods
to calculate the initial solution. If we have set the boundary conditions correctly, you can
use that information to calculate the values of required field variable. In this case, we are
going to use values provided on inlet boundary for calculation.
Note: Its not compulsory to use Compute from while doing solution initialization. This is
just a method of calculating the initial solution using the boundary condition values. You can
manually enter whatever values you want for initialization.
To calculate initial values from inlet zone and to initialize the solution, do following:
Go to Solution Initialization
Select Standard Initialization
In the Compute from section, select inlet
Click on Initialize
Refer Figure 23 for further details.
Now, we have everything needed to start the equation solution. To summarize, so far we
have done following:
Now the next steps are to calculate the solution and get expected converged solution.
Go to Run Calculation
Click on Check Case
This function provides you with guidance and best practices when choosing case parameters
and models. Your case will be checked for compliance in the mesh, models, boundary and
cell zone conditions, material properties, and solver categories. Established rules are
available for each category, with recommended changes to your current settings.
Just review the output, you need not to do any changes in the setup.
To begin with simulation Calculation, enter 700 under Number of Iteration. (Since the
convergence criteria is set to none, simulation will stop after 700th iteration)
From Figure 25, we can observe that the residuals have met the criteria of 10-3. This is a
general acceptance criteria for residuals. Some cases might need convergence below 10-3,
but for this case, this is an acceptable convergence criteria. To get more accurate solution,
we will continue the iteration with higher order discretization schemes.
Once Calculation is completed, a window pops up informing you the same, click OK
Note: Sometimes starting the simulation directly by higher order discretization scheme may
lead to convergence/instability issues for this problem. For better initialization, we did the
first order solution for certain number of iterations and then continued with higher order
discretization scheme to get more accuracy.
Note: The case and data files provided to you includes end result simulated using first order
discretization for 700 iteration and higher order discretization with 400 iteration. The case
file may reflect only higher order discretization with 400 iteration.
You will notice a jump in residual at 700 iteration. This is due to change in discretization
scheme. After 1100 iterations, the residuals are well below acceptable limit. Before we
conclude that the solution is converged, lets have a look at other monitors.
Figure 27 below shows the average velocity plotted at the outlet. As we are solving steady
state case, the velocity at outlet should not change with iteration. It should remain constant.
The monitor plot at outlet also confirms the same and we can conclude that the solution is
well converged and can be taken for post-processing.
15 Result Extraction
Now that the simulation calculation is complete, we need to extract and analyze the results.
Let us see the results one by one.
In order to understand the flow pattern, we will first analyse the flow using vector plot. As
shown in Figure 28, to generate velocity vector plot,
Lets see the overall velocity magnitude variation using velocity contour plots. To generate
the contour plot,
Figure 31: Contour Plot of Velocity along with its Zoomed View at the Step
The exact location of flow reattachment is unclear from both velocity vector and contour
plots. To understand more quantitative data about recirculation and reattachment behind
the step, lets generate a XY (2D) plot.
16 Plots
Reattachment length of fluid flow can be determined using XY plot of X-wall shear stress
versus a dimensionless number Normalized length in X-direction.
Note: In addition to the basic field variables provided by ANSYS FLUENT, you can also define
your own field functions to be used in conjunction with any of the commands that use these
variables (contour and vector display, XY plots, etc.). Refer to ANSYS FLUENT user guide to
know more about custom field function, how to create them and their usage examples.
Follow below steps to generate custom filed function normalized length in X-direction
(Refer Figure 32).
To analyze the flow behavior behind backward facing step, we will plot X-wall shear stress vs
normalized-length-x-direction on the outlet_channel (a wall boundary behind backward
facing step as shown in Figure 33)
You will see that the plot of X-Wall Shear Stress (pascal) vs. normalized-length-x-direction is
created.
In Figure 35, Y axis represents the X-Wall Shear Stress and in X axis represent the normalized
length in X direction. 0 on X axis is bottom corner of the backward step and 40 represents
the extreme end of outlet_channel.
Lets see in-detail the flow behavior behind the step. The major feature of plot shows two
picks. The first pick very near to X=0 and this represents the small recirculation zone near
bottom corner of the step. The second pick represents a large recirculation zone.
It is also seen that in some region, the X-Wall Shear Stress value is negative. This indicated
that there is a flow in negative X direction in that region. This also confirms two recirculation
zones. The maximum negative X-Wall Shear Stress value is -0.0016 Pa. This is caused by
maximum negative X direction velocity.
Maximum X-Wall Shear Stress value is about 0.0006 Pa and occurs at normalized-length-x-
direction of 5.5. We can calculated the actual location where the flow reattachment occurs
using step height as 0.04 m.
17 Summary
From the above simulation, the recirculation length normalized by step height is found to be
5.5 and the flow reattachment occurs at 0.22 m for the chosen dimensions of backward
facing step and flow conditions.
The analysis can further be extended by changing Reynolds number, expansion ratio
(Height of channel downstream of step/height of inflow channel), step angle, etc. and
understanding the effect of change in these parameters on separation length and size of
recirculation zone.
Also slightly coarser mesh could be used and its effect on simulation results could be
observed.
Though the motive of this tutorial was to introduce user to simulate backward facing step
problem by using ANSYS FLUENT but it has got great importance in industry for validating of
turbulence models for the chosen solver of interest.