Turbulent Combustion (201700218) 17 feb 2022

Assignment 1:

Numerical modeling of cold and hot and air mixing in a turbulent flow through a tube.

The goal of this assignment is to predict and analyse the turbulent mixing of cold and hot air in a
turbulent pipe flow. The geometry consists of a T-junction of two pipes: a 20 mm diameter pipe with
length 200 mm and a linked perpendicular pipe of 5 mm diameter and length 20 mm located at the
middle of the 20 mm diameter pipe. The geometry is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Geometry

Hot air with temperature 1000 K enters the big tube with a normal area average velocity of 10 m/s and
cold air with temperature 400 K enters the small tube with 50 m/s area average velocity. The pressure
is 8 bar. The gases can be considered with the perfect gas law for the equation of state.

a)
• Open Ansys Workbench, and in an empty project insert a “Fluid Flow (CFX)” block.
• Recreate the above geometry using the Spaceclaim 3D editor. Alternatively, you can use a
standalone 3D CAD software like SolidWorks, and import the geometry. Dimensions are in mm.
• Save the project.

b)
• Double-click the “Mesh” to open the Ansys Mesh software.
• Use “CFD” as Physics Preference and the “Automatic” mesh method.
• Generate a mesh with an element size of 2.0 mm.
• Don’t forget to create named selections for the inlets, outlet, and wall surfaces.
 • Save the project and close the Mesh software window.
• Duplicate your Fluid-Flow (CFX) block, edit the Mesh on the copied block, change the element
size to 1.0 mm, and generate a refined mesh.
• Repeat this to create a third block with a 0.5 mm element size mesh, then save the project.

c)
• Double-click “Setup” to open CFX-Pre.
• In the fluid domain settings, change the material to “Air Ideal Gas”, set the reference pressure,
and change the Heat Transfer model to “Thermal Energy”. Ensure the k-ε turbulence model is
selected.
• Create appropriate boundary conditions for the two inlets, the outlet and the walls.
• Change the solver control properties: maximum number of 1000 iterations and a residual
target of 1E-10.
• Save the project and exit CFX-Pre.
• Repeat for the other meshes.

d)
• Run the simulations.
• What is your criterion for the run to be converged?
• Decide if the run is converged according to the above defined criterion.
• Stop the simulations with the stop button to save the results in a .res file.

e)
• Double click “Solution”to open CFX-Post.
• Create a mid plane through both inlets and plot contour plots of the following variables on this
plane: axial velocity, radial velocity, pressure, temperature.
• Create a vector plot on the mid plane that shows the flow field clearly.
• Create a line on the outlet parallel to the small tube axis and make charts of above variables
as a function of the spatial coordinate.
• Define expressions and variables to plot the Macro scale and Micro scale, as required for
answering the questions below.
• Repeat for the other meshes.
Questions

Discuss the answers to the questions below and try to explain the differences between the results files
in a small report.

1 Compute and present the fields in an axial cross section through the small pipe and over the length

of the wide pipe of the turbulent macro and micro length scales: l ! k 3e -2 and
3 1
-
h = u .e 4 4 in the flow field. Explain the evolution of both scales in the flow field, and how they

relate to boundary conditions, boundary layer thickness and turbulent interaction.

2 How do the length scales compare to the mesh size? Comment on the mesh effect.

3. Another length scale that can be recognized is the convective length scale on basis of the turbulent
!
macro time scale: "𝑢 ∙ [𝑚](. Compare this to the scales mentioned above.
"

4. In lecture 2 it was derived that in case the unknown turbulent stresses are closed on basis of the
gradient hypothesis, these stresses are related to the shear of the flow by means of a turbulent
k2
viscosity: n T = Cµ m2 / s . Compute and discuss for the flow field the turbulent viscosity.
e
5. Compute and discuss for the flow field the macro scale Reynolds number based on the macro scale
length and the turbulent viscosity. Is it larger than unity?

6. The simplest turbulence model available in CFX is the “Zero Equation model”. This is described in
the CFX manual as follows:
“ Very simple eddy viscosity models compute a global value for the eddy viscosity from the mean
velocity and a geometric length scale using an empirical formula. A constant turbulent eddy viscosity
is calculated for the entire flow domain. The eddy viscosity is computed on basis of:

ν t = f µU t Lt

Here Ut is a turbulent velocity scale and Lt a turbulent length scale”.

k2
Question: Explain how this is derived from the expression: n T = Cµ m2 / s (hint: look at the
e
information on the one but last slide of lecture 4).

The velocity scale is taken to be the maximum velocity in the domain. The length scale is computed
using the formula:

1
Lt = (V ) 3 / 7
Question: This length scale is based on the volume of the flow domain with a spherical shape. In case
we have a tube with cylindrical shape, what would be appropriate then?

Question: Run a simulation with the “zero equation model” on the high resolution mesh, compare
results and discuss your findings.

7. In lecture 2 the spectral density of turbulent kinetic energy E was defined by the following
1 ¥
expression for the kinetic energy k: k= v '' .v '' = ò E ( k w ) dk w , with wave number kw . It was
2 0

demonstrated that this scales with the turbulence variables like:

E (k w ) = -
5
(2p )3 2
- 53
3p .e 3 .k w . Here the turbulent wave number is given by:

3
-
k w ! 2p k e 2

For every point in the domain the value of E and kw can be computed now from the fields of k and ε.
Map all values now in a scatter plot with E on the vertical axis and kw on the horizontal axis.
Comment on the plot.

dk ¥
8. The “rate of dissipation spectral density” D, is defined by e =- = ò D ( kw ) dk w
dt 0

2 1
And D scales like: D ! 2ue k 3 3
w . Create a scatter plot like in 7 and comment. Think of the
proper wave number to be used as discussed in lecture 4!