CFD tutorial of flow around an airfoil (Dr Xie, z.xie@soton.ac.

uk)
I. Geometry generation: http://www.ppart.de//programming/java/profiles/NACA4.html
If you want to generate your own airfoil geometry, you need (1), increase Point Size;(2) change PointDistribution to have denser points at leading
edge;(3) click on Show Points and copy the data on the right column to notepad, and save as an ascii file (text); (4) the data is not complete, neither
suitable for the mesh generator Gambit. You need to open in MS Excel the geo_naca0012.txt shown in Step II and also open your own airfoil data and to
follow the format of geo_naca0012.txt; (5) basically, on the first row, 65 indicates for 65 points/edge you might have chosen different number when you
generated the geometry but dont exceed 100; 2 for 2 edges- upper and lower; from row 2-66 is the x,y,z coordinates for the upper edge you need to
insert z which are all 0; from row 67 -131 is for the lower edge; the number of points for the two edges must be equal; the upper one starts from (1,0,0)
(TE) to (0,0,0) (LE) and lower one starts from (0,0,0) to (1,0,0); the raw data dont satisfy these and you must modify the data format to satisfy the
requirements.
II. Mesh generation. This is an example for NACA0012:
Browse to http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/zxie/CFD-SURG/Summer2012_tut/naca0012/
Right click on geo_naca0012.txt and choose save target (or link) as to download it to your own folder, e.g. H:\naca0012_tut; and also click on nc0012.jou
to download to your folder. Run gambit2.4.6 (in Programme->Numerical modelling) and browse the Working Directory to the new folder H:\naca0012_tut;
type Session ID naca0012 and left click on Run. It may take a few minutes to start gambit. Then ->File->Import->ICEM Import->left click on Browse to
select the geometry file geo_naca0012.txt ->Accept->on the Import ICEM Input File select Vertices and Edges and unselect Face->Accept. The geometry of
the airfoil is generated. Now we are going to generate a domain and a mesh. To save time, we will run a journal file to complete the procedure->on gambit
main menu->File->Run Journal->Browse to nc0012.jou ->Accept ->now a mesh file airfoil0012.msh is generated on your folder for Fluent to import.
You can generate your own mesh using Gambit 2.4.6 following appropriately: https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/SIMULATION/FLUENT+-
+Flow+over+an+Airfoil-+Problem+Specification (steps 1-3 only. Note here is NACA 4412, but you can generate any 4 digits airfoil from
http://www.ppart.de//programming/java/profiles/NACA4.html . Again you must follow the format as that of geo_naca0012.txt.)
III. Solver
(The mesh file airfoil0012.msh is uploaded on http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/zxie/CFD-SURG/Summer2012_tut/naca0012/ for your convenience). Then
run Ansys-Fluent12.1(in Programme->Ansys12.1->Fluent)->select 2D, Double precision, Serial and keep the defaults of Display options->OK->on Fluent
main menu->File->Read->Case->browse to the gambit generated mesh airfoil0012.msh->OK->then follow from Select Problem Setup -> General in
Select the solver (the 2
nd
section) in Step 4 Setup (Physics) (although the web suggests Density-Based solver, I prefer using Pressure Based for
incompressible flow which is easy to converge) on
https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/SIMULATION/ANSYS+WB+-+Airfoil+-+Problem+Specification. (In Solution Methods on the left side, select
SIMPLE for Scheme, PRESTO! for Pressure and Second Order Upwind for momentum. PRESTO! is suggested by Ansys for the Pressure-Based
solver provided that Pressure-Based is selected earlier; Second Order Upwind is more accurate than the default first order upwind) .
CFD Surgeries (http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/zxie/CFD-SURG/CFD-SURG.htm. You are welcome to enrol on the Blackboard):
This is open to all the CFD (Fluent, Star-CCM+, CFX, OpenFOAM, etc) users in FEE.
2012 Summer, Mon 12:00-13:00, Room5095/B13, 21th/May -24/Sept (I will give a notice if I am not available)
Semester 1, one hour/week session, TBA; Semester 2, one hour/week session, TBA
A brief flow chart for typical CFD procedures
Simpler case
Decide the domain and
boundary conditions
Geometry generation
Generate Mesh
Quality checking (Y/N)
N
Y
Import mesh into solver & grid check
Setting up all the necessary functions,
e.g. models, numerical schemes
Validation. Compare with reference data?
Satisfied (Y/N)
Roughly identify where needs
high resolution, e.g. turbulent
flows, y
1
+
?
Y
N
converged
Verification, e.g. grid independence?
Report
Start