Workshop 8b

Vortex Shedding
15.0 Release

Introduction to ANSYS
Fluent
2014 ANSYS, Inc.

February 28, 2014

Release 15.0

Introduction
Workshop Description:
The purpose of this workshop is to introduce good techniques for
transient flow modeling.
Learning Aims:
This workshop teaches skills for running Fluent for time-dependent
(transient) simulations. Topics covered include:
Selecting a suitable time step
Auto-saving results during the simulation
Generating images during the simulation

- using custom-field-functions (CFF)

- generating Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT)
- Transient post-processing in CFD-Post

Learning Objectives:

To show how to set up, run and post-process a transient (timedependent) simulation, as well as additional skills in using custom field
functions and fast Fourier transforms.
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Summary
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Simulation to be Performed
The case considered here is flow around a cylinder with a Reynolds number of
100

Vortex shedding will be observed. However the workshop starts with a steady
state analysis assuming that the user didnt anticipate this behavior

This workshop demonstrates iterative and non-iterative time advancement, Fast

Fourier Transforms (FFT) and animations

The tutorial is carried out using Fluent and CFD-Post in standalone mode

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Computational Domain
The computational domain was created in ANSYS DesignModeler and has the
following dimensions

Introduction
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Model Setup
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Name

Location

Dimension

Cylinder

D1

2 m (dia.)

Inlet Length

D2

20 m = 10 D

Outlet Length

D3

30 m = 15 D

Width

D4

40 m = 20 D

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Reynolds Number Effects

Re < 5

Creeping flow (no separation)

5-15 < Re < 40

A pair of stable vortices in the

wake

40 < Re < 150

Laminar vortex street

Laminar boundary layer up to
the separation point, turbulent
wake

150 < Re < 3105

Boundary layer transition to

turbulent

3105 < Re < 3.5106

Turbulent vortex street, but

the separation is narrower
than the laminar case

Re > 3.5106
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Summary
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Start a Fluent Project (standalone)

Launch Fluent from the Start Menu
Start Menu > ANSYS 15.0 > Fluid Dynamics
> Fluent
- Select '2D' and 'Display Mesh After
Reading'
- Select the working directory you are using
on your machine (may be different to that
shown here)

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Mesh
Read the Fluent mesh file : vortex-shedding-coarse.msh (File > Read > Mesh)
The mesh will be read in and displayed, and the zone names will be shown in the TUI window.

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Mesh
The mesh needs scaling
- Select Scale (Solution Setup > General > Scale), and enter the values shown for the
scaling factors, then press Scale
- Be careful only to press Scale once
Final domain
extents

Close the scale panel and check the mesh

- General > Check
- General > Report Quality

Display the grid again once scaling has been performed

- General > Display
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Solver and Models

Select General in the navigation pane and keep the steady-state pressurebased solver
Keep the laminar setting for the viscous model
The properties to be used for the material air need to be set
- For Density, enter 1 kg/m3
- For Viscosity, enter 0.01 kg/m-s
- Select Change/Create

Introduction
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Model Setup
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Later on we will compare the

Fluent results with those from a
literature search. We have
changed the default material
properties for air to aid that
comparison.

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Boundary Conditions / Solution Methods

Boundary Conditions
- Inlet :
Select boundary in
Set velocity to be 1m/s normal to boundary

- Outlet :
Select boundary out
Keep default of 0 Pa

- Other boundaries :
cylinder is set to a wall, no action needed
sym1 and sym2 are set to symmetry, no action needed

Solution Methods
- Keep default settings

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Solution Monitor
Set up residual monitors to monitor convergence
- Monitors > Residuals > Edit
- Make sure Plot is on, then OK

Create points to monitor quantity

Surface (top menu) > Point

Specify coordinates (2 , 1)
Activate point tool to check location on the grid
(unselect the point tool before closing panel)
Create, then close

Surface monitor on point

- Monitors > Surface Monitors > Create
Select Vertex-Average on report type and Velocity Y Velocity in field
variable
Select point-6 (the point created above at co-ordinates [2,1])
Options: Print to Console & Plot, then OK
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Solution Initialization
Initialize the flow field based on the inlet boundary
- Select Standard Initialization
- Compute from > in (inlet zone)
- Initialize

Save the case file

- File > Write Case
You can write case and data files with extension .gz the files will be compressed automatically.

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Run Calculation
Set the number of requested iterations to 400 then Calculate

We have tried to solve this vortexshedding problem in a steady-state

manner. Note that solution is not
converging and monitor shows a
regular periodic behavior.

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Run Calculation
Choose Graphics and Animations > Vectors
- Since this is a 2D simulation, there is no need to pick a surface, just Display

Steady state
solution is
asymmetric.
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Save the Case & Data Files and Make Transient

Save the case and data files
- File > Write Case and Data

To obtain a more realistic solution to this problem we will solve it again, but in a
transient (time dependent) manner
Under Solution Setup > General, change the time option to Transient

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Run Calculation
For the transient scheme, the default pressure-velocity coupling (SIMPLE) may
require more iterations to converge than other available choices
- Change to the PISO scheme and 2nd order implicit transient formulation as shown in the
image below
- Also change the pressure under-relaxation factor as shown in the image

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Solution Monitor
Edit the Surface monitor
- Change Get Data Every to Time Step. Also set X Axis to Time Step
- OK

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Run Calculation
Save the transient case file before starting the computation
We need to identify a suitable time step size for this problem.
1) A quick way is to do a hand-calculation to see how long it takes for the flow to pass
through a typical grid cell. Run this, and check that convergence occurs in less that 20
iterations per time step.
2) Another approach is to determine the characteristic response of the system. By
performing a literature search, we believe that for this problem, the Strouhal number will
be approximately 0.165 at this Reynolds number. From this, we can predict the period of
the oscillation:

St

fD
1
D
period
6.06 s
V
f St.V

For each oscillation cycle, we will aim to solve 60 time steps, Hence we will run the solver
using a time step size of 0.1s.

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Summary
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Run Calculation
Specify the time step size (0.1 s) and number of time steps (120)
Click on the Extrapolate Variables option
Calculate the Solution
Use this option to
change the display to
show both output
Windows

The Extrapolate Variables option will speed up

convergence. Without this option, each time step
would start with the solution at the previous time step.
This option provides a better starting point for the new
time step based on how the solution is changing with
time. Notice that as the solver runs, convergence is
attained in 5-10 iterations at each time step.

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Summary
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Run Calculation
Save the transient case and data files
Note if you add the string %t to the filename (vortex-shedding-transient-%t.gz) then
Fluent will append the current time value to the filename. Note also that this file just
contains the results at the current time step. If you require interim results as the solution
progresses, use the Autosave feature prior to running the model. We will do this shortly.
Although we now have simulated a couple of oscillations, in order to obtain a true
representation of the vortex shedding we need to simulate many more cycles. With each
cycle, the starting position converges with time until eventually all cycles are identical.
It will take many cycles to achieve this, so we have provided case and data files that has
already been converged (simulation time of 84secs). You will then run this on for a further
couple of cycles to extract the detail of the fluctuating flow patterns.

So, read in the supplied Case and Data file:

vortex-shedding-converged.cas.gz and .dat.gz
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NITA
Enable the Non Iterative Time Advancement Method (NITA)
- With Fractional Step for Pressure-Velocity Coupling
- NITA is an algorithm used to speed up the
transient solution process

- NITA runs about twice as fast as the ITA scheme

- Two flavors of NITA schemes available

- PISO (NITA/PISO)
- Fractional-step method (NITA/FSM)
About 20% cheaper than NITA/PISO on a per
time-step basis

Introduction
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Result Analysis
Save the transient case and data files with the name transient-detail
One of the ways of quantifying the wake vortices is through the use of the Q-Criterion. The
formula for this is below. It is not a standard quantity computed by Fluent, however since
we know the formula, we can ask Fluent to compute it at each grid cell.
Q

Define > Custom Field Functions

U V U V
.

x y y x

- Select solver quantities using the pull down list at the right hand side to construct this
function as shown, then press Define

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Extracting Transient Data

Unless specifically requested, Fluent will not save interim results during a transient
simulation. There are two ways you may want to consider doing this:
1) Saving the results data every (n) time steps to disk. This will give a collection of files
that can be post-processed at a later date, either using Fluent or CFD-Post. However
having to load in a large number of files can be time consuming.
2) The alternative is to extract the required result (like an image from which to build an
animation) from Fluent during the solution process. Since all the data is in memory at
that instant, this is very quick to perform.
We will do both in this example.

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Save Interim Results

To Save interim results:

Select Calculation Activities, and save every 5 Time Steps

Press Edit, and specify the name of the file to be saved
Note that the file name will be appended with the current time value
(e.g. transient-detail-00845.dat.gz)
OK

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Saving Images On-the-fly

Select Calculation Activities > Solution Animation > Create/Edit
Increase number of sequences to 1
Sequence 1, every 2 Time Steps
Define, which will open the Animation Sequence window
Set window to 3, press Set to enable this window, and type to Contours
... Continued on next slide

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Saving Images On-the-fly

Set up the contour panel as shown in the image below, then Display
- Set the graphics window to display screen 3
- Draw a zoom-box with the middle mouse button to zoom in on the cylinder
- Note that the file name will be appended with the current time value

Close the contour panel, then OK to both panels opened on previous slide

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Solution Monitors
Edit the Surface monitor again
- Check the box next to Write and specify a name for the file
- This type of file can be used for Fourier Transform analysis
- OK

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Run Calculation for Creating Animation

Run the calculation:
- Use a smaller time step for NITA (0.05s)
- For 240 Time Steps
- Calculate (this corresponds to roughly 2 periods)

Save the Case and Data File

Remember that if you add the string %t to the filename (vortex-shedding-transient%t.gz) then Fluent will append the current time value to the filename.

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Post-Processing [Fluent]
To run the animation (Graphics and Animation in the navigation pane on the left,
then choose Solution Animation Playback and Set Up)
- Use the Play button to view a movie of the series of images
- If desired, this can be written out as an mpeg movie

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Post-Processing [Fluent]
From the Plots Menu, select FFT then Set Up
From the Fourier Transform Window, Load Input File and pick the supplied file fftdata-2000-timesteps.out (this file was generated after running the simulation for
2000 time steps. Tip: You may need to alter the file selection filter to All Files to
see this)
Pick Magnitude for Y-Axis Function
Pick Strouhal Number for X-Axis Function
. Continued on next slide

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Post-Processing [FFT]
Pick Axes, and for the X-Axis turn off Auto-Range
Set bounds from 0.05 to 1. Apply, then close
Select Plot FFT
. Continued on next slide

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Post-Processing [FFT]
You may need to change the graphic window so that Spectral Analysis is visible

The peak Strouhal number is 0.171, which is close to the 0.165

that was suggested by the literature search. To extract the exact
peak value from this graph, enable Write FFT to file and look at
the text file on disk. The second peak is a harmonic as the input
signal is not perfectly sinusoidal.
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Close Fluent Run CFD-Post

Close Fluent
Open a CFD-POST session
- We will create an animation

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Post-Processing [CFD-Post]
Animations done in CFD-Post can be based on all the data files already saved.
Thus, you can create animations of anything after the calculation is finished

File -> Load Results

- Select last time step data file (Make sure you select the files generated from the autosave
feature, with a filename transient-detail-1-nnnnn.dat.gz, rather than the results that you
have saved manually whilst working though the instructions)
- Select Load complete History as / A single case

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Post-Processing [CFD-Post]
Insert a vector
-

Keep default name Vector 1

Location symmetry 1
Apply
Click on the Z axis to
align the view angle

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Post-Processing [CFD-Post]
Activate the Timestep Selector panel

Pick a time value from

the list then Apply to
see the result at that
time step
Click on the film icon,
then the play button,
for a quick animation
of all saved time steps
Recall that in Fluent, we
generated a contour plot
every 2 time steps. We
saved the data files used
here every 5 time steps.

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Optional Further Work

There are many ways the simulation in this tutorial could be extended
Mesh independence
check that results do not depend on mesh
re-run simulations with finer mesh(es)
generated in Meshing application, or
from adaptive meshing in Fluent
You can investigate other
flow patterns by changing
the Reynolds number.

Reynolds number effects

For lower Reynolds numbers, steady state, laminar analysis is possible.

For increasing Reynolds numbers, unsteady transitional turbulent models (k-klomega, Transition SST) have to be considered
For Reynolds numbers above 3.5106 , the standard or SST k-omega turbulence
models would be used

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Wrap-up
This workshop has shown the basic steps that are applied in all CFD simulations:
- Setting boundary conditions and solver settings
- Running steady and transient models
- Using iterative and non-iterative advancement schemes
- Post-processing the results, both in Fluent and CFD-Post for transient
cases
One of the important things to remember in your own work is, before even
starting the ANSYS software, is to think WHY you are performing the simulation:
- What information are you looking for?
- What do you know about the boundary conditions?
In this case we were interested in calculating flow around a cylinder, and assessing
the vortex shedding frequency. We checked with FFT analysis that the predicted
frequency is in good agreement with results from literature.
Knowing your aims from the start will help you make sensible decisions of how
large to make the domain, the level of mesh resolution needed, and which
numerical schemes should be selected.
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References
Braza, M., Chassaing, P., and Minh, H.H., Numerical Study and Physical Analysis of
the Pressure and Velocity Fields in the Near Wake of a Circular Cylinder, J.
Fluid Mech., 165:79-130, 1986.

Coutanceau, M. and Defaye, J.R., Circular Cylinder Wake Configurations - A Flow

Visualization Survey, Appl. Mech. Rev., 44(6), June 1991.
Williamson, C.H.K, Vortex Dynamics in The Cylinder Wake, Annu. Rev. Fluid
Mechanics 1996. 28:447-539

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