Tutorial 3: Diverging Flow

Introduction: In this example laminar fluid flows over an angled flate plate Physical Problem: Compute and plot the velocity distribution of a flow Problem Description:
Objective: o To plot the velocity profile Dimensions: o The duct has an entrance region of 1m by .5m and an exit region of 1m by 1m. These two regions are seperated by a horizontal distance of 1m. o The velocity of the air at infinite distance from the plate is 3 mm/s (.003m/s). This velocity best demonstrates the recirculation zone while keeping the flow inside the duct laminar. Figure:

Basic Outline of the Problem:

Preprocessing: 1. Start ANSYS.

2. Create areas. 3. Define the material properties. 4. Define fluid element type. (2D Flotran 141 element, which is a 2-D element for fluid analysis.) 5. Specify meshing controls / Mesh the areas to create nodes and elements. Solution: 6. Specify boundary conditions. 7. Specify number of solution iterations. 8. Solve. Postprocessing: 9. Plot the contour plot of the velocity distribution. 10. Plot the velocity plot of the velocity distribution. Exit: 11. Exit the ANSYS program, saving all data.

STARTING ANSYS

Click on ANSYS 5.6 in the programs menu. Select Interactive. The following menu that comes up. Enter the working directory. All your files will be stored in this directory. Also enter 64 for Total Workspace and 32 for Database. Click on Run.

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MODELING THE STRUCTURE:

Go to the ANSYS Main Menu To create the entrance region click Preprocessor>Modeling>Create>Areas>Rectangle>By 2 Corners. The width is 1 and the height is .5. Starting position is at (0,0).

To create the exit region click Preprocessor>Modeling>Create>Areas>Rectangle>By 2 Corners. The width is 1 and the height is 1. Starting position is at (2,0).

 To create the connecting region, click Preprocessor>Modeling>Create>Areas>Arbitrary>Through KPs. Select the four keypoints that make up the region and click OK. The area will be created automatically:

Modeling is now done:

ELEMENT PROPERTIES
SELECTING ELEMENT TYPE: Click Preprocessor>Element Type>Add/Edit/Delete... In the 'Element Types' window that opens click on Add... The following window opens.

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Type 1 in the Element type reference number. Click on Flotran CFD and select 2D Flotran 141. Click OK. Close the Element types window. So now we have selected Element type 1 to be solved using Flotran, the computational fluid dynamics portion of ANSYS. This finishes the selection of element type.

MESHING
To clarify meshing you should plot by lines. To do this click Plot>Lines on the file menu. Go to Preprocessor>Meshing>Size Cntrls>ManualSize>Lines>Picked Lines. Select the four vertical lines and click OK

In the window that comes up type 20 in the 'Element edge length' box and -2 in the Spacing Ratio box. This puts more elements near the walls than in the middle:

Now Click OK. Now go to Preprocessor>Meshing>Size Cntrls>ManualSize>Lines>Picked Lines and select the top and bottom lines of the entrance and exit region:

Enter 15 for the number of element divisions, and enter 1 for the Spacing Ratio. Now go to Preprocessor>Meshing>Size Cntrls>ManualSize>Lines>Picked Lines and select the top and bottom of the transition region. Enter 20 for the number of element divisions, and 1 for the Spacing Ratio. Click OK. Now go to Preprocessor>Meshing>Mesh>Areas>Free. Click the three area's or click 'Pick All' and then OK. Meshing is done. Your mesh should look like this:

Fluid Properties (air):

Go to Preprocessor>Flotran Set Up>Fluid Properties. On the box, shown below, set the first two input fields to Air-SI. Then click on OK.

BOUNDARY CONDITIONS AND CONSTRAINTS

To make loading easier, go to Plot>Lines on the main file menu. Go to Preprocessor>Loads>Define Loads>Apply>Fluid CFD>Velocity>On lines. Pick the left line of the entrance region and Click OK:

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> Enter 0.003 in the VX field and 0 in the VY. Leave VZ blank. Then click OK. This number corresponds to the velocity of 0.003 meter per second of air flowing from the left side:

The walls of the duct are stationary and therefore must have the no-slip condition applied to them. To set this go to Preprocessor>Loads>Define Loads>Apply>Fluid CFD>Velocity>On lines. and select the lines that make up the walls of the duct. There are 6 of them:

 Click OK. In the window that appears set VX = 0 and VY = 0. Leave VZ blank. <!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> The last step is to apply atmospheric pressure to the outlet of the duct. Go to Preprocessor>Loads>Define Loads>Apply>Fluid CFD>Pressure DOF>On Lines and select the right most vertical line and click OK. In the window that appears, enter 0 for the constant pressure value and click OK:

Now the Modeling of the problem is done. The loads on the model will look like this:

SOLUTION
Go to ANSYS Main Menu>Solution>Flotran Set Up>Execution Ctrl. The following window appears. Change the first input field value to 1000, as shown. No other changes are needed. Click OK.

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> Go to Solution>Run FLOTRAN. Wait for ANSYS to solve the problem.

POST-PROCESSING
Plotting the velocity distribution Go to General Postproc>Read Results>Last Set. Then go to General Postproc>Plot Results>Contour Plot>Nodal Solution. The following window appears:

Select VSUM and click OK. The velocity distribution will look like this:

Now go to General Postproc>Plot Results>Vector Plot>Predefined and select Velocity. The vector plot looks like this:

To view the recirculation zone in more detail it helps to animate the results. To do this go to General Postproc>Plot

Results>Def Trace Pt. Select a few nodes in the entrance region (1) and select a few nodes in the recirculation region (2). Then click OK:

Now go to PlotCtrls>Animate>Particle Flow... Select VX. The other default options are fine. Click OK

ANSYS will then animate the flow. It will look similar to this (notice the recirculation region):