Chapter 4

Computational Methodology

4.1 Introduction

To reduce the complexity in the simulation of actual physics in solar thermal

systems, CFD analysis will be carried out to estimate the flow and heat transfer in the

absorber alone. Three dimensional steady state conjugate heat transfer analysis was

conducted to investigate numerically the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the

absorber fluid using the finite volume based CFD code Ansys Fluent 15.0.

For any thermal CFD analysis, an appropriate thermal boundary condition is

important for an accurate prediction of temperature distribution. The temperature gain of

the absorber fluid depends mainly on the incident heat flux, in the form of focused solar

rays reflected from the trough collector. The percentage of the rays reflected by the

parabolic trough collector, from the incident solar rays and thus the heat flux

concentrating on the absorber, is difficult to assess experimentally and need expensive

and sophisticated instrumentation. The present thermal problem at hand has surface

curvatures in the parabolic trough, absorber tube and poses large challenge in assessing

the concentration of solar rays incident on the absorber.

However, spatially varying heat flux distribution on the absorber outer surface as

received from the reflector; need to be specified as a thermal boundary condition for a

61
more accurate modeling of the solar thermal systems. For STA, this heat flux will be

varying around its circumference. Typically the heat flux will be maximum at the bottom

of the absorber tube and gradually decreases to the top side of the tube. For the modified

absorbers HTA and SPTA, the reflected heat flux will be hitting both the absorber tube

and the absorber sheet bottom side.

Ray-Tracing techniques are widely employed for estimating the heat flux from

solar rays received on the system under study. A direct method of calculating the heat

flux using an in-built ray tracing algorithm within the chosen CFD code or heat flux

specification as a boundary condition is needed. Hence an attempt has been made in the

present work to estimate the solar heat flux incident on the absorber using a novel

approach, where a MCRT (Monte-Carlo based Ray Tracing) code was coupled with a

FVM (Finite Volume Method) based CFD analysis solver. In the present numerical study,

the distribution of heat flux focusing on the absorber tube outer surface was numerically

estimated using a general purpose ray trace code SolTrace, with the solar intensity at

12:30 PM as the input.

It is to be noted that misalignments in positioning of the absorber tube axis can

occur in the field erection of the PTC systems. Any small change in the distance between

reflector and absorber will alter the quantity of reflected solar rays focusing on the

absorber tube and modify the system efficiency.

To assess the influence of the parameters like (i) absorber distance from the

reflector, (ii) absorber tube diameter and (iii) absorber fluid flow rate on the flow and

thermal characteristics of the STA, numerical analysis was carried out. Off design

62
positioning of the absorber assembly towards or away from the reflector, were

numerically simulated. The influence of tube diameter and coolant flow rate was studied

numerically, by modifying the absorber tube geometry and changing the boundary

conditions in the solver. For the modified absorbers HTA and SPTA, the influence of the

parameter (iv) absorber sheet width was also considered, in addition to the parameters

considered for STA. The computational methodology adopted and the geometrical

parameters studied in the present numerical work are discussed in detail in the following

sections.

4.2 Heat Flux Estimation - Ray Tracing

In the present study, the concentrated solar irradiation heat flux distribution as

reflected by the PTC was obtained by using a general purpose ray trace code SolTrace. It

follows a sequential coupled method to obtain the concentrated heat flux distributions on

the absorber tube surface. A brief introduction to the ray-tracing code is given in the

following section.

4.2.1 Introduction to SolTrace

SolTrace (version 2012.7.9) developed by the National Renewable Energy

Laboratory (NREL) is a general purpose ray trace code based on the Monte-Carlo

method. The code is capable of modeling the concentrating solar power optical systems

and analyzes their performance. Although originally intended for solar applications, the

code can also be used to model and characterize many general optical systems. SolTrace

can model parabolic trough concentrators as well as dishes, towers or other unique

geometries (linear power towers, solar furnaces, etc.). It models optical geometries as a

63
series of stages composed of optical elements that possess an extensive variety of

available attributes including shape, contour, and optical quality.

Fig.4.1 shows the screenshot of the SolTrace software. The code utilizes a ray-

tracing methodology developed by Spencer and Murty [97]. The system under study for

the solar thermal / optical analysis need to be modeled within the software.

The sun, sun position, shape of sun intensity, optical elements to be tested and the

absorber are modeled within the SolTrace.Fig.4.2 shows the components of the SolTrace

software such as Sun, Optical Properties, System Stages and Trace Options.

Fig. 4.1 Main menu of SolTrace software

64
 Fig. 4.2 Components settings window in SolTrace software

Rays falling from the sun are traced through the system while encountering

various optical interactions was modeled. Some of these interactions are probabilistic in

nature (e.g. selection of sun angle from sun angular intensity distribution) while others

are deterministic (e.g. calculation of ray intersection with an analytically described

surface and resultant redirection). SolTrace has the advantage over other codes such as

Comsol, Star ccm+ Trnsys since SolTrace has been more user friendly.

Therefore SolTrace can provide accurate results for complex systems that cannot

be modeled otherwise. Accuracy of ray prediction increases with the number of rays

traced and larger ray numbers means more processing time. Also, complex geometries

translate into longer run times. Fewer rays (and therefore less time) are needed to

determine relative changes in optical efficiency for different sun angles on a given solar

concentrator than that are needed to accurately assess the flux distribution on the receiver

of that same concentrator.

65
4.2.2 Inputs to SolTrace

The PTC system of investigation was modeled in the SolTrace code with the solar

trough collector and the single tube absorber, as independent elements, positioned

relative to each other in the same coordinate system similar to the experiments. The sun

position was specified with respect to the PTC system to model the impinging solar rays

using global coordinate system approach. The stage properties modeled in the STA with

the parabolic trough collector and the absorber tube is shown in Fig. 4.3(a). The element

surface and aperture modeling details for the parabolic trough surface and the absorber

tube surface is shown in Figs. 4.3(b) and (c) respectively.

(a) Stage properties as defined in SolTrace

(b) Surface definition for the PTC and the absorber

66
 (c) Aperture definition for the PTC and the absorber – STA

Fig. 4.3 Modeling of elements in SolTrace

Two characteristics completely define the “sun” as the light source in SolTrace

code: (1) the angular intensity distribution of light across the sun‟s disk (referred to as the

sun shape) and (2) the sun‟s position. A predefined sun profile was chosen with a peak

beam radiation flux of 800 W/m2, as observed in the test.

Total number of solar rays traced for the present study was 1 million in SolTrace.

Fig.4.4 shows only a sample set of 100 rays (1-100 no‟s) traced in the PTC system to

avoid clutter. Fig.4.4 (a) shows the front view of the rays traced from the sun hitting the

reflector and the reflected rays hitting the absorber tube. It is to be noted that the picture

aspect ratio is not to scale and reproduced here as obtained from the SolTrace code. The

solar rays were made to hit the reflector from the top towards the bottom. The

corresponding location of the sun is specific to a particular instant of the experimental

day. Fig. 4.4 (b) shows the isometric view of the PTC system with the solar rays. The

67
shadow cast by the absorber tube on the trough can be visualized as a dark region, in

which the effective ray impinging and subsequent reflection was blocked.

Fig.4.5 shows the incident and reflected solar rays for the HTA / SPTA assembly.

The absorber plate alone has been used to trace the heat flux incident on the absorber

assembly. The heat flux value on the absorber plate bottom surface has been used to map

the absorber tube assembly and absorber plate in HTA. Similarly this heat flux was

mapped to the serpentine tube and absorber plate assembly for the SPTA. It can be

observed that the shadow cast by the HTA on the parabolic reflector is wider than that of

STA, because of the larger width of HTA.

68
 Incident rays Absorber tube

Reflected rays

Parabolic trough

(a) Front view (image not to scale)

Wr
Incident rays

Reflected rays Reflected rays

Lr

Shadow of
absorber tube

(b) Isometric view (image not to scale)

Fig. 4.4 Sample rays traced for the PTC system using SolTrace - F = 42.85 cm

69
 Absorber plate

(a) Front view – HTA (image not to scale)

Shadow of
absorber plate

(b) Isometric view – HTA (image not to scale)

Fig. 4.5 Sample set of solar rays traced in SolTrace for STA / HPTA - F = 42.85 cm

70
4.2.3 Working Procedure

In SolTrace, an optical system is organized into “stages” within a global

coordinate system. A stage is loosely defined as a section of the optical geometry which,

once a ray exits the stage, will not be re-entered by the ray on the remainder of its path

through the system. Complete system geometry may consist of one or more stages. It is

incumbent on the user to define the stage geometry accordingly.

The motivation behind the stage concept is to employ efficient tracing and

therefore save processing time and allow for a modular representation of a system. The

other significant benefit of stages is that they can also be saved and employed in other

system geometries without the need for recalculating element positions and orientations.

Segmentation of the geometry via stages may also be useful in assignment of different

coordinate systems for specific geometries and can make adjustment of locations far

more straightforward.

A stage is comprised of “elements”. Each element consists of a surface, an optical

interaction type, an aperture shape and, if appropriate, a set of optical properties. The

location and orientation of stages are defined within the global coordinate system

whereas the location and orientation of elements are specified within the coordinate

system of the particular stage in which they are defined. Stages can be one of two types:

optical or virtual. An optical stage is defined as one that physically interacts with the rays

and can potentially altering their trajectories. Conversely, a virtual stage is defined as one

that does not physically interact with the rays. The virtual stage is useful for determining

71
ray locations and directions and incident power or flux at various positions along the

optical path without physically affecting ray trajectory and has no optical properties.

Beyond this, optical and virtual stages are identical in how they are defined and

used. Stages can be duplicated and moved around as groups of elements and saved for

use in other system geometries. It is not possible to mix virtual and optical elements

within single stage at present.

SolTrace uses three right-handed coordinate systems: the global coordinate

system, the stage coordinate system and the element coordinate system. These are

illustrated in Fig. 4.6. Each element in a stage has a local coordinate system (i.e. location

and orientation) defined relative to the stage coordinate system. Each stage has a

coordinate system defined relative to the global coordinate system. The direction of the

sun is defined relative to the global coordinate system.

Fig. 4.6 SolTrace coordinate systems - Generalized version

72
 The sun direction can be input in either vector form, or in time-of-day, day-of-

year format with latitude specified. For the present numerical analysis, the vector form of

specification for the sun was used. Light rays are generated from the sun and then traced

sequentially through each stage in the geometry. The position and direction of each ray in

each stage is stored in memory for later processing and output.

4.2.4 Output from SolTrace

The heat flux distribution on the absorber tube as estimated by SolTrace is shown

in Fig. 4.7.It is to be noted that the heat flux distribution on the absorber surfaces were

estimated for an incident beam flux of 800 W/m2, as observed in the experimental

measurements. The two dimensional plan view of the STA tube outer surface heat flux is

shown in Fig. 4.7(a) for the tube diameter Do=25.4 mm. The abscissa represents the

circumferential perimeter length of the absorber tube and the ordinate represents the tube

axial length. The three dimensional heat flux distribution on the STA is shown in

Fig. 4.7 (b). Since most of the reflected sun rays are focusing to the bottom of the tube,

higher heat flux was observed in this region and decreases towards the tube top. At the

tube top, the heat flux is mostly from the direct beam radiation.

The spatially varying three dimensional heat flux distribution thus obtained was

mapped on to the absorber surfaces in the CFD solver Fluent. The temperature

distribution on the absorber tube and the heat gained by water were estimated from the

CFD analysis. Figs.4.7 (c) and (d) show the corresponding plan view and the three

dimensional map of the heat flux distributions on the absorber sheet bottom surface of the

absorber sheet used in HTA / SPTA. Figs.4.8 and 4.9 show the heat flux map for the STA

73
and HTA / SPTA at different absorber focal positions (F), as obtained from SolTrace.

Fig.4.10 shows the heat flux distribution on STA for different tube diameters whereas

Fig. 4.11 shows that on HTA/SPTA absorber sheets for different widths. For the CFD

analysis with a particular absorber positioned at the chosen focal length, the

corresponding three dimensional heat flux map was used as the thermal boundary

condition.

Tube
Top
Tube
Tube Tube bottom
Tube Top Bottom
bottom
Tube axial length, Lr

(a) STA – Plan view (b) STA – Isometric view

(c) HTA/ SPTA – Plan view (d) HTA / SPTA – Isometric view

Fig. 4.7 Heat flux distribution on the absorber from SolTrace - F = 42.85 cm

74
 Tube bottom

Tube top
(a) F = 41.35 cm (b) F = 41.85 cm

(c) F = 42.35 cm (d) F = 42.85 cm (Baseline)

(e) F= 43.35 cm (f) F = 43.85 cm

Fig. 4.8 Heat flux distributions on the

absorber tube outer surface [W/m2]
at different absorber positions from
the reflector (Do = 10 mm) – STA

(g) F = 44.35 cm

75
 Absorber
plate mid

(a) F = 41.35 cm (b) F = 41.85 cm

(c) F = 42.35 cm (d) F = 42.85 cm (Baseline)

(e) F = 43.35 cm (f) F = 43.85 cm

Fig. 4.9 Heat flux distributions on the

absorber tube outer surface [W/m2]
at different absorber positions from
the reflector – HTA / SPTA

(g) F = 44.35 cm

76
 Tube bottom

Tube top
(a) Do = 10.0 mm (b) Do = 12.7 mm

(c) Do = 25.4 mm

Fig. 4.10 Heat flux distribution on STA for different tube diameters

Absorber
plate mid

(a) Wa = 7.5 cm (b) Wa = 10.0 cm

(c) Wa = 15.0 cm

Fig. 4.11 Heat flux distribution on HTA / SPTA for different absorber widths
77
4.3 Physical Domain

The physical model or domain is the setup that was used in the experiments. The

physical model consists of a parabolic trough collector, an absorber tube with a glass

cover. Apart from the PTC, the single cylindrical copper tube in the STA or the absorber

tube assembly and the absorber sheet in the HTA form the physical model, whereas the

corrugated tube will be considered for the SPTA. For the experiments conducted on the

conventional and modified absorbers, the experimental setup details were discussed

already in Chapter 3.

4.4 Computational Domain

The computational model or domain is the CAD model built with reference to the

physical model tested in the experiments and the details of which is discussed in this

section. The water carrying copper tube in the STA or the set of copper tubes and the

absorber plate in the HTA or the serpentine tube and the absorber plate in the SPTA

forms the computational domain for the present study. The internal volume of the

absorber tube where the working fluid flows will be treated as the „fluid domain‟ in the

numerical analysis. The solid thickness of the absorber tube and the absorber sheet will

be modeled as „solid domain‟. The solid and the fluid domains of the absorber system

were modeled in a conjugate fashion, to have the un-interrupted exchange of heat flux

across the domains. The solar heat flux estimated from the SolTrace code was specified

as a boundary condition on the absorber tube outer surface or absorber sheet, tube

assembly. The PTC trough, air domain between the trough and absorber and the ambient

78
air surrounding the absorber are not considered for the present computational study as

their influence on the performance is assumed very negligible.

4.4.1 Single Tube Absorber (STA)

Figure 4.12 shows the computational domain of STA ie., the absorber tube used

for the present CFD analysis where one end of the computational domain is shown. The

STA is a simple copper pipe of chosen diameter Do, with thickness t and of length Lr. The

solid copper tube domain and the water domain inside the tube were modeled in a

conjugate fashion, where a common surface will be used to represent both the fluid and

solid domains in the pre-processor, which enables an accurate thermal prediction in the

solver.
Tube top

Tube bottom

Cold water
inlet

Fig. 4.12 Computational domain of STA – Do = 25.4 mm

79
4.4.2 Header Tube Absorber (HTA)

Water is passed through the copper tubes and carries the heat gained by the

absorber system. Fig.4.13 (a) shows the isometric bottom side view of the modified

absorber HTA, where the appropriate value of heat flux from SolTrace was mapped as a

thermal boundary condition. Fig. 4.13(b) shows the modeling strategy adopted presently

in the region of absorber tube and absorber plate junction. To avoid any possible mesh

issue due to sharp corner and to avoid a line contact, the tube geometry is made to merge

with the plate to have contact over an area. This will ensure the replication of closure of

the gap between the plate and the tube in the experiments, by brazing and black paint.

Tube-03 Absorber sheet

Tube-02
Tube-01

Absorber Area
sheet contact

Water inlet Absorber fluid

header inlet

(a) Isometric view of the absorber (b) Contact area

Fig. 4.13 Computational domain of HTA

80
4.4.3 Serpentine Tube Absorber

Absorber sheet

(a) Isometric view of the absorber

Absorber
Absorber sheet
fluid inlet

(b) Close view of the

absorber

Fig. 4.14 Computational domain of SPTA

Fig.4.14 shows the isometric bottom side view of the modified absorber SPTA.

4.5 Mesh Details

Meshing was carried out using the pre-processing tool Gambit 2.4, to generate

hexahedral finite volume elements throughout the computational domain. Finer near wall

meshing is developed using the boundary layer mesh feature of the pre-processor with the

first node at 0.1 mm and with a default growth factor of 1.1 for 10 layers. This is done to

capture the flow and thermal features happen close to the wall more accurately. Grid

independency tests are carried out for the STA taking the surface averaged fluid outlet

temperature as the assessment criteria. Similar meshing strategies have been adopted for

HTA and SPTA.

81
4.5.1 Single Tube Absorber – STA

Fig. 4.15 Meshed single tube absorber (STA) tube (solid domain only shown)

For the single tube absorber, computational volume meshes of hexahedral

elements were generated with three different mesh element sizes to form coarse, medium

and fine meshes with 0.65, 0.97 and 1.3 million cells respectively. The generated mesh of

solid domain for the absorber tube is shown in Fig. 4.15.

Fig.4.16 shows the variation of fluid outlet temperature obtained from the

computations on STA with different mesh densities. It was observed that the temperature

value increases from a mesh size of 0.65 to 0.97 million. The variation of this value from

0.97 to 1.3 million cells is comparatively less, which indicates that the effect of mesh

density is beyond 0.97 million cells got insignificant improvement in the output and

hence it was decided to continue with the mesh settings of 0.97 million cells for the

present study.

82
 50

49

Tf,o (oC)
48

47

46
0.65 0.97 1.3
Computational mesh size (in million cells)

Fig. 4.16 Absorber fluid outlet temperature at different grid sizes – STA

The end view of the computational mesh with 0.97 million cells with fine mesh

near the inner wall is shown in Fig. 4.17.

Solid

Fluid
Coarse
Fine

Fig. 4.17 End view of the meshed single absorber tube with 0.97 Million cells

83
4.5.2 Header Tube Absorber – HTA

Hexahedral
cells
Tetrahedral
cells
Tube-03

Tube-02

Absorber
Tube-01
sheet

Absorber
fluid inlet

Fig. 4.18 Meshed HTA assembly

Fig.4.18 shows the meshed computational domain for the HTA where hybrid

meshing, a combination of tetrahedral and hexahedral cells, were employed. The straight

tube regions and most of the absorber plate regions are meshed with unstructured

hexahedral elements whereas the more complex regions like pipes intersection are

meshed with tetrahedral elements.

4.5.3 Serpentine Tube Absorber – SPTA

Fig.4.19 shows the meshed SPTA computational domain which has been adopted

fully with hexahedral cell. The corrugated tube was meshed with a surface mesh first in

the absorber fluid inlet face and the mesh was swept along the axis of the tube to create a

fully hexahedral cell mesh.

84
 Fig. 4.19 Meshed SPTA assembly

4.6 Governing Equations

The fundamental governing equations for flow and heat transfer are the

continuity, momentum (Navier-Stokes) and energy equations along with the equations for

modeling the turbulence quantities. The governing equations are presented in this section.

Based on the mass flow rate and tube dimensions, the calculated Reynolds numbers are

found to fall well below the critical value and hence the flow is treated as laminar in the

present computations of single tube absorber. The conservation equations for laminar

flow in an inertial (non-accelerating) reference frame are presented here. The equation for

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

⁄ ( ⃗) (4.1)

Equation 4.1 is the general form of the mass conservation equation and is valid

for incompressible as well as compressible flows. The source Sm is the mass added to the

continuous phase from the dispersed second phase (e.g., due to vaporization of liquid

85
droplets) and any user-defined sources. For the present computational analysis, the source

term Sm will be zero.

The equation for the conservation of momentum in an inertial (non-accelerating)

reference frame is given as,

( ⃗) ( ⃗ ⃗) ( ̅) ⃗ ⃗ (4.2)

Where p is the static pressure, ̅ is the stress tensor, and ⃗ and ⃗ are the gravitational

body force and external body forces (e.g., that arise from interaction with the dispersed

phase), respectively. ⃗ also contains other model-dependent source terms such as porous-

media and user-defined sources. The stress tensor ̅ is given by

̅ *( ⃗ ⃗ ) ⃗ + (4.3)

Where is the molecular viscosity, I is the unit tensor, and the second term on the right

hand side is the effect of volume dilation.

The CFD code solves the energy equation in the following form

( ) ( ⃗( )) ( ∑ ⃗⃗⃗ ( ̿ ⃗)) (4.4)

Where keff is the effective conductivity (k+kt), where kt is the turbulent thermal

conductivity, defined according to the turbulence model being used), h is the sensible

enthalpy for ideal gases, ⃗ is the diffusion flux of species j and Sh is the energy source

term. The first three terms on the right-hand side of the equation represent energy transfer

86
due to conduction, species diffusion, and viscous dissipation, respectively. More details

of the governing equation can be found in Ansys Fluent 15.0 users guide (2013).

4.7 Turbulence Modeling

For the modified absorber designs – HTA and SPTA, the flow rates specified for

the in combination with the smallest pipe diameters gave Reynolds numbers in the

turbulence regime. Hence turbulence modeling was adopted for these cases. Further to

[74], the sst-k model was chosen for the present computations with HTA and SPTA.

The details of the governing equation for the turbulence model can be found in Ansys

Fluent 15.0 users guide [98] and hence not reproduced here.

4.8 Numerical Details

Three dimensional steady state approach was used to minimize the computational

effort, time and cost of computing. To investigate the flow and heat transfer in the

absorber, the code Ansys Fluent 15.0 was used. An instantaneous solar intensity has been

given as one of the input to the solTrace code. The heat flux from SolTrace was mapped

to the absorber tube surface in Fluent as a thermal boundary condition by a suitable

interpolation technique within the solver. The absorber fluid outlet temperature from the

computations for the given boundary conditions was estimated. Hence the steady state

approach was prepared than the unsteady state code.

4.9 Boundary Conditions

The boundary conditions used for the present conjugate thermal computational

fluid dynamic analyses are taken from the present experiments. For an ambient

87
temperature of 30oC, the radiation loss to the ambient is negligible. Hence, the thermal

energy loss to the ambient due to convective and radiative heat transfer, from the

absorber tube, was not considered in the present computational analysis. The summary of

the boundary conditions (BC) used in the present computations are listed below.

1. Computational domain inlet

BC type : Mass flow inlet

BC values : 30, 36, 42 and 48 kg/hr

Thermal parameter type : Constant temperature

Water temperature at inlet : 30 oC

2. Walls of absorber plate and absorber tube

BC type : Wall (impermeable to fluid)

Thermal parameter type : Specified heat flux

Heat flux values : Mapped from the SolTrace output

3. Computational domain outlet

BC type : Pressure outlet

BC values : Static pressure = 0 (represents ambient condition)

The case with absorber tube axis position at 42.85 cm was considered as the baseline. For

the design and off-focal absorber tube axis positions, the heat flux estimates on the

absorber tube surface were obtained from SolTrace and mapped to the CFD analysis.

4.9.1 Mapping Heat Flux from SolTrace

The heat flux values estimated from SolTrace were exported to excel and

converted as profile files which was later read into the CFD solver Fluent. These heat

flux values were assigned to the absorber tube surfaces in the solver, by importing the
88
profiles in to the solver and assigning the corresponding heat flux values to the

appropriate boundary surface pre-defined in the pre-processing stage.

Figure 4.20 shows the heat flux from SolTrace code fed into Fluent software and

mapped to the surface of the absorber.Fig.4.20 (a) shows the contour of heat flux mapped

on to STA outer surface. As observed in the heat flux distribution from SolTrace, the

bottom side of the absorber tube has highest heat flux value and it decreases gradually

towards the top of the absorber tube.

(a) STA (b) HTA

(c) SPTA

Fig. 4.20 Heat flux mapped on to the absorber surfaces

89
 Figs. 4.20 (b) and (c) show the corresponding distribution in the HTA and SPTA,

for the absorbers positioned in the design focal distance of 42.85 cm. Similarly, the heat

flux of the corresponding absorber surfaces were mapped from SolTrace to Fluent, for

different absorber position ( F), different tube diameters ( Do ) and for different absorber

sheet widths ( Wa ).

4.10 Convergence Criteria

The convergence criteria for the computational solution are determined based on

scaled residuals for the equations of continuity, momentum equations and turbulence

quantities specific to the respective models. The scaled residuals for solution convergence

have been set to 10-5 for all governing equations and turbulence quantities. The solution

has been considered to be converged when all the scaled residuals are less than or equal

to this preset value. Computations are carried out until the steady state has been reached.

For few cases, the convergence could not be achieved to the desired accuracy. In those

cases, the iteration has been continued further to a stage that the results do not vary even

after 500 iterations, thus achieving iterative convergence.

90