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Overview of CFD workflow
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
A case study
Overview of CFD workflow
Overview of CFD workflow
What is CFD?
What is CFD?
The CFD workflow is made up of three main steps that allows to obtain a numerical
solution to the real fluid mechanic problem.
The CFD workflow is made up of three main steps that allows to obtain a numerical
solution to the real fluid mechanic problem.
The CFD workflow is made up of three main steps that allows to obtain a numerical
solution to the real fluid mechanic problem.
The CFD workflow is made up of three main steps that allows to obtain a numerical
solution to the real fluid mechanic problem.
Example of CFD workflow for the simulation of the flow around a GT car
(courtesy of Pagani Automobili S.p.A.)
Overview of CFD workflow
The advantages of CFD mainly follow from the inherent virtual nature of the
technology.
Main advantages
Time and cost cut down in new designs and
prototyping
Access to challenging, hazardous or even
impossible experimental conditions
Virtually unlimited level of accuracy and detail
The limits of CFD follow from the approximations involved in the CFD workflow and
from the complexity of fluid mechanics
and limits
The physical and mathematical model might be
approximated
Discretization techniques and numerical
algorithms lead to numerical errors
Most of flows in nature are turbulent
Numerical simulation of a
turbulent jet
Turbulent flows and
turbulence modeling
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
What is turbulence?
Fluid flow in which the fluid undergoes irregular1 fluctuations, or mixing2. The
speed of the fluid at a point is continuously undergoing changes3 in magnitude and
direction, which results in swirling and eddying4 as the bulk of the fluid moves in a
specific direction*
Turbulence characteristics
1. Chaotic process
2. Enhanced mixing
3. Unsteady phenomena
4. Vortical structures
Laminar dispersion
Turbulence and transport
phenomena:
Mass transport High concentration
enhancement
Momentum exchange
Turbulent dispersion
enhancement
Heat transfer enhancement
Low concentration
The Reynolds experiment shows that the transition from a laminar to a turbulent
flow takes place depending on the values of the following non-dimensional group:
(Reynolds number)
where
velocity scale
length-scale
kinematic viscosity
Reynolds experiment
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
Turbulent
Laminar
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
Laminar Turbulent
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
The sensitive dependence to initial and boundary conditions is due to the effect of
non-linear terms in the deterministic equations
Chaotic system
Since the Navier-Stokes equations are sensitive to initial and boundary conditions,
a statistical description is introduced:
Average
Variance
Correlation
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
Reynolds decomposition
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
Once the Reynolds decomposition for the field variables in introduced, the RANS
equations are obtained by taking the average of the original governing equations,
giving:
Reynolds-stress tensor
Flow
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
Fourier series
Amplitude
Period
Phase
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
Production range
Inertial range
Dissipative range
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
Turbulent scales
+ Physics
- Applications
DNS
LES
RANS
- Physics
+ Applications
Turbulent flows and turbulence modeling
Spatial and time filtering is used in LES and RANS respectively to reduce the
computational effort
LES model
RANS model
A case study
A case study
Overview (1/2)
Flow parameters
A case study
Overview (2/2)
Flow angles
1-MOD 4-MOD
Staggered Staggered
Aligned Aligned
A case study
Simulation tools
Modeling framework
Computational effort
DNS RANS
8.000.000 cells 1.300.000 cells
240.000 time steps 1000 time steps
8 days@240 cores <1 hour@96 cores
A case study
The SGDH model is unable to represent scalar fluxes in complex flows because of
the failure in the ad hoc analogy between molecular and turbulent transport.
Flux
Turbulent transport
Gradient
Flux
A case study
Algebraic flux models (AFMs) represent one way to abandon the standard gradient-
diffusion model without introducing the complexity of second-order models: