Centre for Computational Technologies

“Simulation is the Future”

Software Test
Software: Pre-processing – ICEM CFD
Solver and Post-Processing – Fluent

Date: January 07, 2008

Duration: 5 Hrs

Instructions

• The test is mainly designed to check student’s capability/expertise in solving

industrial CFD problem
• Following tasks are expected from students
o Meshing given geometry using ICEM-Hexa (Multiblock Grid)
o Applying boundary conditions as exporting mesh for Fluent
o Doing simulation in Fluent with appropriate selection of
Solver/Turbulence Model/Boundary Conditions based on aim and
objective of the project specified.
o Doing effective post-processing as required by aim specified.
o Interpreting the results and conclusion
o Prepare report (.doc) with all assumptions made in simulation etc..
• Read following before starting any work

Aim of Project: To study flow distribution of air in the solar cabinet dryer [SCD]

System under Consideration:

The system under consideration is Solar Cabinet Dryer (SCD). The main purpose of this
equipment is to dry material (fish, green Peas, grapes etc.) kept in it. The efficiency of
SCD is evaluated based on dryness factor (ratio of amount of moisture before and after
drying). It is expected that, every dryer should give uniform dryness factor over all the
trays located in dryer. To study amount of moisture present in material kept in dryer,
CFD simulation will ask for multiphase study. It is very difficult to predict dryness factor
using CFD tool. But if CFD simulation is done only to study whether dryness is uniform
or not, we need not to do multiphase studies. The conclusion of uniform dryness can be
drawn based on flow distribution. If amount (mass) of hot air passing over each tray is
same, then we can conclude that the dryness effect for every tray will be same.

The current study is done only to know flow distribution and to calculate (relatively)
mass distribution for each tray.
The solar cabinet dryer under study is a simple drying cabinet which consists of two
chambers of trays, the left chamber and the right chamber, each of 8 vertical trays
separated by 8 cm. Each tray has a dimension of 56 x 76 x 2.5 cm and the dryer has a
height of 40 cm. The air inlet of the dryer from the blower has the dimension of 20 x 20
cm and also the outlet. The inlet divergence of the dryer has an angle of 25° and the
convergence at the outlet has an angle of 27° respectively. All the 16 trays in the dryer
are at horizontal positions and the space between two trays is 2.5 cm. The divergence
length from the inlet is 68 cm, and from the outlet is 80 cm. after the divergence and prior
to convergence there is a length of 35 cm for the air flow to equilibrate before entering
and leaving the dryer.
 The geometry of solar dryer is provided (.tin). All the parts (inlet, outlet, left trays, right
trays etc) are created for your reference

Outlet Inlet

Use following boundary conditions

• Mass flow inlet = 0.3 kg/s at 360C

• Pressure outlet = 0 gauge pressure (wrt atmospheric pressure)
• All solid walls (outer boundary, try walls) = No slip boundary and adiabatic wall

Results Expected:

• Velocity vector plots on longitudinal cross section along SCD

• Path lines emerging from inlet
• XY plots of velocity distribution in divergent section after inlet
• Air mass flow for each tray
• Any other plots to interpreter flow properly