Automotive

Visions of the Future: Automotive CFD

Chemical
Microreactors Take CFD to the Max

Marine
CFD Makes Waves in the Americas Cup

Power
NOx Busters

V O L X I I S S U E 2 FA L L 2 0 0 2

APPLIED COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

Dynamic Mesh

Aerospace
and Defense
Supplement Inside!
Contents S11 16

10 S4
feature stories
dynamic mesh
5
The Dynamic Mesh Model

Vibromixers Take the Plunge

Store Separation Analysis

Powerful In-Cylinder CFD

applications
S12 automotive
12 Motorscooter Aerodynamics
24 power generation
NOx Busters
Brake System Condensation Modeling Trapped Vortex Combustors Show Promise
Nuclear Reactor Accident Simulator
materials
17 lighting
Advanced Multiphase Models from
SINTEF
27 Lighting Up Plasma Lamps

chemical
18 Microreactors Take CFD to the Max
28 environmental
Judgement Day for CFD Technology

marine
20 CFD Makes Waves in the Americas Cup
29 hvac
Taking the Heat Out of the Clinton Museum
The Ongoing Success of EPFL
glass and fibers
equipment manufacturers 30
23 High Performance Compact Heat Exchangers
Drawing Optical Fibers
Ozone-Friendly Insulation

21
 39
departments
visions of the future
12 Automotive CFD

academic news
32 FlowLab Enters the Engineering Curriculum
Fluent Holds First Annual Student Contest
Prestigious Award for Fluent Italy Employee

computing
34 Engineering Simulation in the Next Decade

product news
35 Whats New in FLUENT 6.1
Development News for POLYFLOW 3.10
FIDAP 8.7 Scheduled for Fall 2002 Release
GAMBIT 2.1: A Breakthrough in CAD
Import

27 40 support corner
CAD Import & Cleanup in GAMBIT

aerospace and partnerships

defense supplement 42 EASy! for Pumps Design Software Uses
Fluent Technology
overview gO:CFD Integrates FLUENT with gPROMS
S2 Taking CFD to New Heights in for Reactive Flow Modeling
the Aerospace Industry FLUENT/RELAP5-3D Integration Enters
Validation Stage
QNET Building Quality and Trust in
aviation safety
S3 European External Aerodynamics
Industrial CFD
NAFEMS CFD Working Group
Projects at INTA
Enhancing Thrust Reverser
around Fluent
Performance 44 Fluent Benelux Opens in Wavre, Belgium
IMechE Gives First-Ever Award for Software
electronics
S5 FLUENT and Icepak Team Up for
to Fluent Europe
Electronics Cooling Analysis

S6 wind tunnels
Over a Decade of FLUENT
5
Simulations at NASA Langley

external aerodynamics
S8 SmartFish?
AIAA Drag Workshop Revisited
Hellfire and Back

defense
S10 Tank and Artillery Cannon Muzzle
Brakes Reducing Gun Recoil
Quietly
Dynamic Adaption in FLUENT 6.1

fuel injectors
S12 High Performance Fuel Injector
Design
 Editors Note
On the Cover:
Pathlines are used to illustrate
the swirling flow in neighboring
cylinders at two piston positions in
a Deutz BF4M 1011F diesel engine;
the dynamic mesh model in FLUENT
was used for the simulation
Courtesy of Deutz AG
On the Supplement Cover:
The dynamic mesh model in FLUENT
is used to simulate the release of a
store from a CFD model of a delta
wing; oil film lines are used to
illustrate the flow around the store
at two times after the release
Fluent News is published by
10 Cavendish Court
Lebanon, NH 03766 USA
1-800-445-4454
2002 Fluent Inc.
All rights reserved.
FLUENT, FIDAP, GAMBIT, POLYFLOW,
G/Turbo, MixSim, FlowLab, Icepak,
and Airpak are trademarks of Fluent
Inc. All other products or name
brands are trademarks of their
respective holders.
he ability to peer
T
into machinery in
operation has been
one of the leading ben-
efits that CFD has offered
to engineers over the
years. The earliest sim-
ulations provided images of steady state conditions.
These soon gave way to transient simulations that
could follow time-dependent phenomena rang-
ing from blending to vortex shedding to com-
bustion instabilities. The introduction of the sliding
mesh model in the early 1990s widened the field
of view to include the flow associated with trains
passing in a tunnel and impellers rotating in a
baffled tank.
With the dynamic mesh model in FLUENT 6.1,
the opportunities to observe, understand, and
learn about complex fluid flow have expanded
once again. This model allows for the arbitrary
motion of fluid boundaries and in doing so, cap-
tures the response of the fluid to the prescribed
boundary motion. The number of applications
that can benefit from this exciting new capability
abound, and include in-cylinder analysis, store
separation, moving valves, and mixing equip-
ment. On the pages that follow, we are pleased
to present a technical summary of the dynam-
ic mesh model, and several companion articles
that illustrate how the model can be put to use.
Even with a static mesh, there is still much
to be learned from the other application stories
that appear in this issue. A story from Japan on
microreactors explains how new technology will
change the way chemicals are produced in the
future. A French manufacturer of optical fibers
makes a clear case that the quality of the fin-
ished product is highly sensitive to the flow sur-
rounding the fiber throughout the entire
process. An American producer of insulation
describes how efforts are underway to use mate-
rials that have little or no impact on our envi-
ronment. And with the Americas Cup races fast
approaching, we learn how the Swiss are using
CFD to understand several wind- and water-relat-
ed phenomena that have a powerful impact on
a vessel under sail.
The supplement in this issue focuses on the
Aerospace Industry, and features an impressive
array of applications. Safety issues are a common
theme in a few of the stories. For example, the
trailing vortices off airplane wing tips are the sub-
ject of an investigation by a Spanish research organ-
ization, and the performance of thrust reversers
is of interest to an American aircraft manufac-
turer. The dispersion of exhaust gases from mis-
siles launched from an Apache helicopter is shown
to be yet another area where CFD can be used
to assess potential danger. A unique simulation
is also presented in which means of suppress-
ing artillery noise is examined using some of the
most sophisticated grid adaption techniques ever
deployed.
In addition to the departments normally appear-
ing in Fluent News, we introduce something new
with this issue: interviews with influential peo-
ple whose organizations have been at the fore-
front of CFD use within a particular industry. Our
first interview is with MIRAs Anthony Baxendale,
who gives his opinions on how CFD might be
used within the automotive industry in the future.
We hope that you find this issue of Fluent News
interesting and informative. Please send us your
feedback, and tell us about how our software
has helped you.
Liz Marshall
fluentnews@fluent.com

The Dynamic
Mesh Model
By Jerry Lim, Fluent Inc.
ntroduced as a beta feature in
I FLUENT 6.0, the dynamic mesh
model, part of the moving and
deforming mesh capability, extends
the capacity of the FLUENT solver
to handle problems that involve
unsteady moving geometry. After
successfully completing several
industrial strength test cases, and fea-
turing several enhancements, the
dynamic mesh model is being for-
mally released to all users in FLUENT
6.1. In addition to significant robust-
ness improvements, the model will
be fully parallelized.
In order to accommodate a
wide range of motion types, FLUENT
6 offers three modes of mesh defor-
mation: dynamic layering, spring
smoothing, and local remeshing. The
first two approaches are similar to
mesh motion schemes that have been
widely used for many years. Dynamic
layering is useful for linear motion.
Valve motion shown in two steps above; below, the first step is shown in
cyan (light blue) the second is overlayed in magenta, and grey denotes no
change to the mesh between the steps
dynamic mesh
Layers are added and deleted to
accommodate the specified bound-
ary motion. The term dynamic
means that the process is handled
internally by the FLUENT solver, based
only on a specified ideal cell height,
and factors that govern when a cell
should split and when two should
coalesce. These parameters define
upper and lower cell height limits.
When the cell height limits are exceed-
ed, FLUENT automatically detects this
condition, and splits or coalesces the
layer as needed. Because cells are
added and deleted, neighbor con-
nectivity changes are made as well.
This approach may be utilized for
quadrilateral (2D volume cells and
3D boundary faces), prismatic, and
hexahedral element types.
The spring smoothing method is
useful for relatively small deformations.
The assumption in FLUENT is that the
mesh nodes are connected like a net-
Pressure contours on a 3D valve
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 5
dynamic mesh
work of springs. By performing a force
balance on each of the spring ele-
ments, an equilibrium balance is
sought which provides a smooth (min-
imum energy) mesh. If two elements
(nodes) are too close, the spring force
will repel the nodes away from each
other. Since each nodal position
depends on its neighbor nodes, and
the neighbor nodal positions are
dependent on their own neighbor
nodes, spring smoothing is accom-
plished through an iterative process,
like that used by other elliptic mesh
generators. The spring smoothing
process does not result in any con-
nectivity changes since all node/cell
relationships are preserved. Used as
a stand-alone scheme, spring smooth-
ing is limited, since excessive defor-
mation will result in highly skewed
cells. The spring smoothing algorithm
may be used for triangular (2D vol-
ume cells, 3D boundary faces) and
tetrahedral elements.
The third approach, local remesh-
The mesh around two Ahmed bodies deforms as one ing, represents a departure from tra-
(grey) overtakes another (red) ditional mesh motion schemes. In this
approach, the cell size and quality
(skewness) limits are prescribed. As
mesh motion occurs, cells will even-
tually exceed the prescribed limits.
FLUENT detects these cells and
marks them for remeshing. In addi-
Contours of exhaust gas mass fraction are used to illustrate the launch of a rocket, solved using the dynamic mesh model in FLUENT
6 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
tion to marking the offending cells,
several neighbor cells are also marked.
This collection of cells represents a sub-
domain, which is automatically
remeshed using the TGrid algorithm
that is now built into FLUENT. After
remeshing, the CFD solution is inter-
polated onto the new cells. Thus, rather
than generate a completely new
mesh for the entire volume, remesh-
ing and interpolation works on a local
basis. As with dynamic layering, local
remeshing implies connectivity
changes. Typically (but not necessarily),
it is used in conjunction with spring
smoothing. The local remeshing
algorithm may be used for triangu-
lar (2D volume cells, 3D boundary
faces) and tetrahedral elements.
A dynamic calculation requires an
initial mesh and description of the
boundary motion. A model with sev-
eral independently moving parts can
be treated using different zones
to represent the different parts. In-
dependent motions for these parts
can be specified, and the regions
surrounding them will be remeshed
using whichever technique is appro-
priate at the time. The flexibility of
the model makes it well suited to
address a number of different appli-
cation areas, as described in the
articles that follow.
 dynamic mesh

Vibromixers
Take The

Iso-surfaces of velocity magnitude illustrate the jets

PLUNGE
By Kumar M. Dhanasekharan and Srinivasa L. Mohan, Fluent Inc.

emanating from the holes

isk impellers that agitate a liquid by moving up Because the tapered ends of the perforations are ori-

D and down are called vibromixers. These impellers

usually contain conical perforations through the
disk, but some varieties function without them.
ented upwards, jets are emitted from the tops of the
holes during the downward stroke of the impeller. These
jets can be captured by drawing iso-surfaces of constant
Vibromixers provide some interesting advantages over velocity magnitude. During the upward stroke, fluid flows
conventional impellers for certain applications. For bio- in the reverse direction into diverging conical volumes.
chemical reactors, such as fermenters, it has been shown Jets formed as the fluid passes into these volumes through
that vibromixers can generate mass transfer coefficients the tapered ends are weak, and they quickly dissipate.
that are substantially higher than those obtained in After the vibromixer has been operating for several cycles,
a rotationally stirred reactor.1 In the pharmaceutical indus- pathlines can be used to illustrate the circulation pat-
try, where microscopic solids in suspension need to be terns that have developed in the surrounding fluid.
maintained in sterilized, hermetically sealed containers,
vibromixers provide a good alternative to stirred tanks. 1 Ni, X., Gao, S., Cumming, R. H., and Pritchard, D.W, A
They are more portable, use a simpler motor mount, Comparative Study of Mass Transfer in Yeast for a Batch
Pulsed Baffled Bioreactor and a Stirred Tank Fermenter,
and dont require a rotating seal. Chem. Eng. Sci. 50:2127-2136, 1995.
The dynamic mesh model in FLUENT 6 was recent-
ly used to simulate a vibromixer operating in a vessel
of water. The disk has over forty perforations that are
in the shape of truncated cones. When the disk under-
goes periodic motion through the fluid, jets are repeat-
edly forced out the tapered ends of these perforations,
due to the venturi effect. Over time, these jets give rise
to large circulation patterns in the tank, which is impor-
tant for good turbulent mixing. Depending on the
orientation of the conical perforations, the design can
be used for both up-pumping and down-pumping
applications.
A 650,000 cell mesh of unstructured hexahedral ele-
ments was used for the simulation. Using Coopering tools
in GAMBIT, quad cells were created on the disk surface
and extruded in the axial direction to build the volume Pathlines colored by time
mesh. This process created even layers of hexahedra, illustrate the circulation patterns
generated by the mixer
which is an excellent mesh environment for the antic-
ipated disk motion. User defined functions were used
to specify the time dependent velocity of the disk, and
a new grid was created automatically at each time step
using the dynamic layering algorithm. During this process,
the cells near the disk were either stretched or contracted,
or an entire layer was added or removed to adjust to
each new disk position.

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 7

dynamic mesh
Store Separation
Analysis
By Evangelos K. Koutsavdis, Fluent Inc.
ne of the most challenging
O problems in aerospace
engineering, especially for
military vehicles, is the analysis of
a store (a weapon, fuel tank, or elec-
tronic countermeasures device,
for example) that is released from
a high-speed aircraft. Store separa-
tion analysis typically includes
such things as a calculation of the
trajectory, the identification of safe
separation zones, an assessment of
aerodynamic interference, and mak-
ing sure that collisions are avoided.
For multiple separations, typical of
cluster bombs for example, the analy-
sis could also include the dispersion
characteristics of the weapon, so that
the munitions cover the biggest pos-
sible area upon impact with the
ground.
For many years, physical testing
using the actual aircraft and device
has been the only method for per-
forming store separation analysis. The
cost and risks associated with such
tests can be high, however, espe-
cially during parametric studies. The
dynamic mesh model in FLUENT now
provides a safer, more cost-effective
solution to the analysis needs of aero-
space companies involved in this kind
of application.
The basic characteristic of store
separation analysis is the presence
of a body that moves in the com-
putational domain as a result of its
The evolution of the grid for a 2D store
separation simulation
8 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
interaction with the computed
flow field. This means that in addi-
tion to the need for a dynamic mesh,
tools are also required that deter-
mine the body movement based on
the local flow conditions. These tools
need to accurately compute the aero-
dynamic forces on the body, and
determine the dynamic response of
the body to these forces. A trajec-
tory calculation is performed to inte-
grate the forces and moments on
the body, and provide an accurate
position of the body as a function
of time.
The most challenging of these
tasks, by far, is the mesh handling.
The geometric complexity of mod-
ern aircraft and the stores, which may
be outfitted with fins, guidance
devices or release mechanisms,
necessitates the use of complex mesh-
es, comprised mostly of tetrahedral
elements. The remeshing schemes
need to be robust and deliver high
quality meshes that can be relied upon
for accurate aerodynamic load pre-
dictions at each time step. Since thou-
sands of time steps may be needed
for an accurate analysis, depend-
ing on such factors as the release
speed or aircraft speed, the mesh
handling also needs to be done in
a time-efficient manner.
For the store separation simula-
tion shown at left, a user-defined func-
tion (UDF) is used to compute the
 dynamic mesh

aerodynamic load and trajectory of

the store at each time step, based
on the local flow conditions. The UDF
is a full force and moment calcula-
tion that allows for six degrees of free-
dom. User inputs include the basic
characteristics of the store, such as
the location of the center of gravi-
ty, the store mass, and components
of the moment of inertia tensor. Once
the new location and orientation of
the store is computed, a new mesh
is constructed using a combination
of the spring smoothing and local
remeshing algorithms.
Sizing functions, introduced in the
latest version of GAMBIT, are used
in these algorithms to produce an
optimum mesh distribution. Other
quality controls include user-speci-
fied limits on the mesh skewness and
cell volume. When complemented
with the full suite of postprocessing
tools in FLUENT, including anima-
tions, the dynamic mesh model can
offer a clear picture of the store tra-
jectory and identify potential prob-
lems before or even without an actual
flight test.

Pressure contours and pathlines on a generic store being released from an aircraft bay at a Mach number
of 0.7 at three times

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 9

dynamic mesh

Powerful
In-Cylinder CFD
By Fritz Bedford and Shaoping Shi, Fluent Inc.

he simulation of internal combustion engines A qualitative assessment of the predictive capa-

T with moving pistons and valves is one of the

premier applications of the dynamic mesh
model in FLUENT. By breaking up the model into
bility of FLUENTs hybrid approach for moving and
deforming mesh is offered in Figure 2. These images
are taken from a simulation of a high-swirl research
different zones, it is possible to apply different mesh engine.1 The swirl patterns at the end of the intake
motion types to different regions in a single sim- stroke at three different positions along the cylin-
Figure 1: The surface grid for a four-valve engine
ulation. For example, Figure 1 shows a four-valve der axis are illustrated. The FLUENT dynamic mesh
engine where local smoothing and remeshing are model results are in excellent agreement with exper-
used in the upper part of the combustion cham- imental measurements and calculations per-
ber, and dynamic layering is used in the lower formed by an in-house code at General Motors,
part of the combustion chamber adjacent to the as reported in Ref. 1. In particular, the FLUENT pre-
piston, and in the region above the valves. The dictions accurately capture the location of the swirl
use of the unstructured smoothing and remesh- center at each axial position. The FLUENT results
ing approaches in the upper combustion cham- for the flow field at the point in the cycle when
ber greatly facilitates the simulated motion of the the piston is in the top dead center position also
valves. If only traditional structured approaches agree well with data. This result is important because
were available, it would be difficult to generate in this position, the combustion chamber is com-
topologies that could accommodate the full range pletely filled with tetrahedral elements. Qualitative
of valve motion in this region. Typically, such struc- comparisons such as these support the trio of remesh-
tured moving mesh approaches require special ing schemes in FLUENT for use in other in-cylin-
pre-processing tools and involve significant man- der flow applications.
ual work. These tools and procedures are not required To simulate the complex physics that are fun-
for the dynamic mesh model in FLUENT, where damental to internal combustion engines, the
only the initial mesh and description of the bound- dynamic mesh capability is fully compatible with
ary are required. In the lower part of the com- FLUENTs suite of spray and combustion models.
bustion chamber, it is more natural to use layered Figure 3 shows a snapshot of a fuel spray in a diesel
elements, since the piston motion is linear and engine2 several milliseconds after the start of injec-
there is no interaction with the moving valves. tion. The breakup of the fuel spray is governed
Layered elements are also used above the valve, by the KHRT (Kelvin-Helmholtz Rayleigh-Taylor)
allowing better resolution of the valve seat gap. spray breakup model. After the spray evaporates,
Although not required for the engine shown in FLUENTs eddy-dissipation model is used to sim-
Figure 1, FLUENT 6.1 also includes tools for treat- ulate mixing controlled combustion, and the result-
ing arbitrarily complicated piston shapes. ing fuel iso-surfaces are shown, colored by

Figure 2: Swirl patterns for a high-swirl

research engine

10 Fluent NEWS fall 2002

 dynamic mesh

Figure 3: Looks like a fancy dessert, but
it is really liquid fuel spray and an iso-
surface of vaporized, yet unreacted fuel
concentration, colored by temperature
in a diesel engine. The fuel is being
consumed by combustion but is getting
replenished by the fuel spray. The
competing effects have reached a Figure 4: The geometry of the DOE/NETL natural gas engine
standoff in terms of the motion of the
iso-surface. The simulation predicts
that there will be a significant amount
of fuel vapor at high temperature,
which leads to the formation of soot.

temperature. This simulation also takes advan-
tage of the IC-specific crevice model, which
accounts for unresolved crevice volumes as
well as blow-by past the piston rings. The
spray models are also important for spark-
ignited, gasoline direct injection engines. In
fact, CFD is a useful tool for modeling strat-
ified-charge (non-homogenous) spark-ignit-
ed engines in general, where it is necessary
to determine if vaporized fuel is delivered to
the spark plug electrode at the instant of igni-
tion. If the spark is not immersed in a com-
bustible mixture, a misfire will occur.
Fluents dynamic mesh capability has also
been used in spark ignition natural-gas
engines. A joint effort between Fluent Inc.
and the Department of Energys National
Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE-NETL)
is currently underway to study simulation
techniques for these engines. One case stud-
ied recently is the experimental DOE-NETL
stationary engine shown in Figure 4.
Natural gas is premixed with air upstream
of the intake port in this engine. The mix-
ture is compressed in the combustion cham-
ber and ignited by an electric spark. The
evolution of the flame-front after ignition
is shown in Figure 5. Because of the homo-
geneous nature of the mixture, FLUENTs
premixed combustion model can be used.
This model determines a turbulent flame
speed based on the local turbulent kinet-
ic energy and dissipation rate. The turbu-
lent flame speed is then used to determine
the location of the flame front on either side
of the burned and unburned mixtures. Rather
than solve for multiple species, it is there-
fore only necessary to solve for a single
progress variable. Since port fuel injected
and carbureted gasoline engines also involve
the spark ignition of a homogeneous pre-
mixture, the same approach can be used in
these engines as well. In cases where the air-
fuel mixture is not perfectly premixed, FLUENTs
partially premixed model may be used.
Planning and development are current-
ly underway to extend the existing spray and
combustion capabilities. For example, diesel
auto-ignition models are a high-priority item
currently being implemented. These will extend
the scope of diesel combustion applications Figure 5: Temperature contours track
that can currently be solved by FLUENT. A ignition in the cylinder (top view)
wall-film model is also being developed. This
model is necessary for direct-injection and
port-fuel injected gasoline engines, and some
small-bore diesel applications. Other advanced
combustion capabilities are also in the plan- References
ning stage, including unsteady flamelet 1 Khalighi, Bahram, Haworth, Daniel, and Huebler,
approaches and multicomponent vaporiza- Mark, Multidimensional Port-and-in-Cylinder
Flow Calculations and Flow Visualization Study
tion. When combined with the flexibility of
in an Internal Combustion Engine with Different
the dynamic mesh model, these options will Intake Configurations, SAE 941871, 1994.
allow for the most comprehensive suite of 2 Dec, John E., A Conceptual Model of DI Diesel
internal combustion modeling tools available Combustion Based on Laser-Sheet Imaging,
SAE Paper 970873, 1997.
in commercial software today.

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 11

automotive
Visions Future: of
the
Automotive CFD
Keith Hanna from Fluent News recently spoke with Anthony Baxendale, Aerodynamics Department
Manager at MIRA Ltd. in the UK, about the trends and challenges facing the automotive industrys
use of CFD in the future.
KH: Briefly, what is the history of MIRA, and what does it
uniquely bring to the automotive industry?
AB: MIRA was formed in 1945 as an
independent non-profit organ-
ization, dedicated to carrying out
research and testing for the British
motor industry. Over the years
MIRAs extensive testing facili-
ties and research have helped
us to gain an in-depth expert-
ise of individual automotive com-
ponents, vehicle systems, as well
as cars as a whole.
MIRAs Anthony Baxendale
We are based in Nuneaton in the
center of England, and a wide range of knowledge built on
our heritage still exists today in our 31million business, which
employs 550 people at several locations.
In the late 1990s, computer simulation technology advanced
to the point where we began to witness a decline in the demand
for some of our existing test facilities. This led us to rethink
our corporate strategy and resulted in a re-focusing of our
research strategy onto new product development. As a result,
MIRA now provides integrated automotive capabilities in a
design-led environment rather than a testing-led one.
In fact, our strategy continues to evolve in this direction and
we are now positioning ourselves to be the center of excel-
lence for zero prototype engineering. Already, many proj-
ects we take on now involve the creation of cross-functional
teams of specialists so that we can provide complete solu-
tions to clients on a project-by-project basis. The manage-
ment of such projects presents a real challenge and, as a result,
our culture has had to change.
12 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
KH: How has this design-led philosophy versus a testing-
led approach affected your aerodynamics group at MIRA?
AB: Eight years ago we only had two CFD engineers in the team,
whereas today we have seven supported by twenty design
engineers, plus a team of five other people working at our
35 m2 full scale wind tunnel. In fact, the term CFD engi-
neer can be misleading because they are skilled in project
management and experimental techniques as well as CFD.
On balance, the majority of the projects we take on are for
UK clients, although a rapidly growing proportion now comes
to us from the rest of the world. Central Europe and China
are growing markets for our CFD services. Broadly, we find
about 35% of our projects are in the powertrain and under-
hood area, 20% involve climate control, and the remainder
involve external aerodynamics or various other topics. An increas-
ing proportion of our CFD projects are part of larger design
programs. This has meant we have had to break down bar-
riers between departments and combine our skills. This plays
to our strengths because few of our competitors can begin
to match MIRAs breadth of expertise.
KH: What software does your CFD group use and what CFD
design process have you devised?
AB: We use a wide range of CFD products, including FLUENT,
PowerFLOW, and STAR-CD, plus a number of CAD and grid
generation packages including CATIA, IDEAS Masterseries, ICEM,
and Unigraphics. We also use a number of 1D modeling codes
like GT-Power and Flowmaster, which are essential for us to
provide complete automotive solutions to clients when cou-
pled with other simulation codes and with our physical test-
ing facilities. In essence, we have most of the products that
our clients (collectively) use, and for these clients, CFD is usu-
ally only part of the overall solution that we provide.

Pathlines over a Mazda MX5
Geometry obtained via www.viewpoint.com
Like many users of CFD in the automotive industry we use
CAD geometries that are either given to us or that we cre-
ate ourselves. Indeed, dirty CAD geometries and their clean-
up can take between 10 and 60% of a projects total time.
Hence, we find it helps to educate our CAD engineers on what
makes for good geometry requirements from a CFD perspective.
Basically, they must work on a design with CFD in mind, although
this has to be balanced with the need to design with man-
ufacturing in mind. This is a significant paradigm shift that
needs to happen for CFD users and the CFD industry as well.
Although we use commercial software, we are developing
some pretty clever processes to cut meshing times and to
integrate solution methodologies. We see this as innovation
and as part of increasing our competitive advantage. For exam-
ple, this is happening in the areas of thermal management
and unsteady aerodynamics. We will be promoting our new
capabilities in these and other areas very soon.
Traditional Vehicle Development Process
Concept/Targets Concept Development Design
Marketing Packaging Detailing
Engineering Capability Mules/Prototypes
Business Case
Virtual Prototype Development Process
Virtual Prototyping
Concept/Targets
Marketing
Engineering Capability
Business Case
Design
Detailing
automotive
A strong part of our CFD process is employing the latest proj-
ect management systems and scheduling software to com-
plete projects on time and on budget. Historically, we have
used large UNIX workstations for our CFD processing, but
lately we have shifted towards PCs because of their reduced
cost per processor, their expanding power, and the ability
to network clusters of them together. Indeed, Fluents soft-
ware has the best parallel portability to PC clusters we have
seen (on both LINUX and Windows operating systems).
As we looked at our CFD process over the last few years to
evaluate savings and cost reductions, we identified the need
to consolidate our software and hardware to work with key
suppliers like Fluent to develop long term relationships to
our mutual benefit. Today our typical CFD simulations range
between 5 and 15 million cells, although we expect this to
rise to over 25 million in the next year.
Validation Maturation Volume
Soft-Tool Prototypes Tooling Installation
Detail Design Update Certification Tests
Time Saved
Validation Volume
Tooling Installation
Off-Tool Tests
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 13
automotive
KH: FLUENT is a relative newcomer to the group of CFD codes used at
MIRA. What factors led to your recent investment in this software?
AB: We chose the FLUENT CFD software as it offers a wide range of func-
tionality, is easy to use, and is robust. Another factor in our decision
was that the FLUENT code is requested by many of our major clients,
primarily those in the automotive industry.
KH: Five years from now, where do you foresee CFD being positioned
within the automotive industry?
AB: Three or four years ago we saw a sudden mushrooming of the use of
CFD in the automotive industry as it moved out of the research and
development departments and into the design process. I see a con-
tinued rapid growth in the use of CFD, although there are some sig-
nificant process barriers to overcome. In five years time or less, I can
easily see full vehicle CFD models with underhood, climate control,
and external aerodynamics all in one model, developed in a day and
run in an hour! Indeed, I foresee that other simulations will be cou-
pled to the CFD models and computed concurrently. Almost certain-
ly, time-dependent simulations will become more routine, and I expect
to see large strides in CFDs integration into the overall design process.
There will be steady improvements in software accuracy and usabili-
ty, and the use of web-based CFD will be more common both with-
in a company and across sites worldwide.
KH: Finally, what do you see as the challenges for the CFD industry in
meeting the needs of the automotive community in the long term?
AB: For a start, integrating CFD into the design process will be critical as
part of digital vehicle prototyping. Companies like Jaguar think in
these terms and have digital gateways in the automotive product
development cycle within a common simulation environment. I believe
that such an environment will join together best-in-class software
products with expert systems software and common data manage-
ment structures. We need to develop organizational learning skills as
we go along so we can manage risk and fill gaps in our knowledge
and processes quickly.
european automotive CFD conference 2003
Fluent is pleased to announce
the first conference for applied
CFD users in the European
automotive industry.
Bingen, Germany
June 25-26, 2003
Future directions of applied CFD
Virtual prototyping
Keynote speeches
Sessions for automotive CFD applications
Leading hardware and software innovations
Leading practitioners in applied CFD
Latest developments in America and Japan
Social Program
For more information and to register:
www.fluent.com/support/ugm/index.htm
14 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
Another big area for the future is what we call co-simulation where,
for example, in the field of aero-acoustics, automotive CFD aerody-
namics departments will predict noise levels for a given automotive
design. This data will then be fed into a Structures Code to see how
the noise interacts with the vehicles body. Ergonomics software will
be used to register how this noise will be perceived inside the car. There
will, therefore, be a need for the right links between different software
technologies such as these.
In terms of CFD advances, I can easily foresee a growth in demand
for large-eddy simulation (LES) modeling in CFD, and improved tur-
bulence models for more accurate predictions. This is naturally so because
all real-world flows are inherently unsteady anyway. In the future, the
best hardware and CFD software on the market will have to meet these
automotive market demands.
It is my belief that at the end of the day, CFD engineers will use the
best available tools from a toolbox to make assessments and judgments
on a given engineering design. I see CFD purely as an engineering
tool. Engineers will, therefore, want to choose a reliable yet easy-to-
use CFD tool that can deliver accurate results quickly. That is the bot-
tom line. It is also important for engineers to be able to view their CFD
predictions and interrogate them easily. I foresee that with cheaper
hardware and advances in both virtual reality technology and elec-
tronic reporting, we will be presenting and viewing our results very
differently in the years to come.
Looking beyond the near future and beyond usage by CFD engineers,
there are some interesting options to ponder. Will we be using CFD
in actual cars to do real-time, customized simulations of climate con-
trol to improve occupant comfort, for instance? Will we be giving ver-
bal commands to computers to do on-the-fly CFD simulations and come
up with multiple predictions so that we can exercise our engineering
judgment on the spot? Now, that would be something! Whatever hap-
pens, I foresee a rosy but challenging future for CFD in the automo-
tive industry.
Courtesy of Ferrari

otorcycle aerodynamics doesnt
M usually receive as much attention
as that for automobiles. This is
partly because the automobile is more wide-
ly used as a method of transportation, and
partly because the aerodynamics of a motor-
cycle changes as the rider shifts position.
Furthermore, because the wheels of a motor-
cycle are only partially shielded, it is diffi-
cult to realize a fully streamlined body for
either simulation or testing purposes.
To date, many motorcycle components,
such as the frame and shock absorbers, have
been physically tested and numerically sim-
ulated. These components have a power-
ful influence on vehicle handling, safety, and
performance. External aerodynamics, on
the other hand, affects fuel consumption,
vehicle stability and handling, and rider and
passenger comfort. To a lesser degree, the
external airflow affects engine and brake
cooling. Taken together, it is clear that exter-
nal aerodynamics plays a significant role
on the overall performance of the bike.
At the University of Perugia in Perugia,
Italy, simulations performed using FLUENT
have recently been carried out on a com-
mercial motorscooter. As a first step in this
automotive
Motorscooter
Aerodynamics
By Paolo Conti and Massimiliano Malerba, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
Horizontal pathlines around the scooter
effort, the motorscooter was studied with-
out a rider. The FLUENT simulations were
focused on identifying, through validation,
the best strategies for grid generation and
model selection. The drag properties of a
real motorscooter were measured in a wind
tunnel for the purpose of comparison.
The motorscooter geometry was writ-
ten in the IGES format, and imported into
GAMBIT, where more accurate surfaces were
constructed, and a mesh of tetrahedral ele-
ments was created. Turbulent airflow sim-
ulations in FLUENT were examined closely.
Particular attention was given to the pre-
dictions of pressure field, pitching moment,
drag, and the overall airflow behavior in
the upper areas of the motorcycle, where
aerodynamic phenomena most affect the
rider. Predictions for drag were compared
to the wind tunnel test data, and very good
agreement was found. This has given the
researchers confidence in the other simu-
lation results, especially the pressure field,
which is usually difficult to characterize exper-
imentally. It has also encouraged them to
continue their work with more detailed mod-
els; they are currently working on a sim-
ulation of a scooter with a rider. Pressure distribution on the front of the scooter
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 15
automotive

Brake System
Condensation
Modeling
By Fred Meslay, Fluent Europe

arlier this year, WABCO Automotive UK Ltd., a lead-

E ing manufacturer of innovative automotive com-

ponents, tasked Fluent Europe with comparing the
efficiency of their current air dryer unit against a new
design. The unit is positioned downstream of a com-
mercial vehicle compressor, and is designed to remove
water from the air before it enters the brake system.
The current design includes an inner drying cartridge
contained in a bowl-shaped metal housing, with a com-
plex casting part that feeds the air to the dryer unit.
The dryer is designed to have a condensation effect when
the warm moist intake air comes into contact with the
metal outer bowl of the unit. The new design added The complex geometry and surface grid on the casting walls
additional features on the inner cartridge that were designed
to improve the rate of condensation and thus the effi-
ciency of the dryer. FLUENT simulations were performed
for the original and new designs, with the objective of
comparing the condensation rates for each on the outer
bowl surface. For this purpose, engineers at Fluent Europe
used a user-defined function (UDF) to calculate the con-
densation rate on a specified wall.
Both designs were meshed with a zonal-hybrid mesh
using Fluent's versatile pre-processor GAMBIT. Hexahedral
and prismatic cells were used in most of the model along
with tetrahedral cells in the more complex casting part.
This allowed good resolution of the finer geometric details.
At the beginning of the project it was not known whether
the casting part would have to be included in the model. Pathlines (left) and condensation contours (right) for the original design
However, the FLUENT results showed that for both designs,
the flow in the air dryer is far from axisymmetric. This
confirmed the need to model the casting geometry with-
out simplification to make sure the flow profiles into the
actual dryer unit were correctly represented.
The results of the simulations showed that the tem-
perature in the cartridge of the new design was lower
than in the original design.
The condensation model implemented by Fluent could
also be used to study condensation in many other appli-
cation areas, including windscreen misting, throttle valves
and air ducts in aircraft engines.

Pathlines (left) and condensation contours (right) for the new design

16 Fluent NEWS fall 2002

 materials

INTEF Materials Technology has used Fluent software to improve

S metallurgical and chemical processes since 1985. In 2001,

Fluent and SINTEF formalized their long-standing relation-
ship via a partnership agreement, under which SINTEF may devel-
op and deliver modeling enhancements to Fluent clients. The
cooperation provides Fluent clients improved access to SINTEFs
expertise and to new models, developed under non-commercial
research projects, that improve the prediction of combustion, pol-
lutant formation, radiation, solidification, magnetohydrodynam-
ics, electrochemistry, and multiphase flows encountered in the
metallurgical and oil/gas industries.
The final macrosegregation percentage in a fully solidified Sn-5wt%Pb
SINTEF was a pioneer in multiphase CFD modeling, devel-
alloy, which was solidified by cooling at the left hand wall; the mixture
oping Eulerian multifluid modeling of gas-solid flows as early as was depleted of lead at the top surface and enriched with it at the
1988 using FLUENT 2.97, says Stein Tore Johansen, Research Director bottom; red regions have the highest positive macrosegregation, or
highest lead content; blue regions have the highest negative
of the Department of Flow Technology at SINTEF. In coopera- macrosegregation, or lowest lead content
tion with the ferro-alloy and incineration industries, we are now
extending the capacity for detailed modeling of reactive flows,
in particular with respect to NOx and pyrolysis.
Recently, design studies of ferrosilicon plants were performed.
The project began with a combustion simulation in FLUENT of
the old furnace hood and off-gas channel at an Elkem ferrosili-
Advanced
con plant. FLUENT was then used to support the design of a new
off-gas system that fulfills Elkems requirements for plant opera-
tion performance. With the new off-gas system, the furnace is now
operating at higher loads, the clogging danger is considerably
reduced, gas leakages from the hood to the environment are pre-
Multiphase
vented, and the new cooling system is able to recover several
GWhs/year of electric energy.
SINTEF has also developed within FLUENT advanced solidifi-
cation models for metallurgical applications, based on the multi-
fluid approach. Macrosegregation, or variations in composition
Models
from SINTEF
during solidification caused by melt convection and moving crys-
tals, can be simulated with these tools. The solidification routines
are coupled to micromodels for the growth kinetics of dendrites,
branch-like structures formed by nonuniformities in the melt.
During the last decades, the Norwegian aluminum industry has By Knut Bech and Harald Laux, SINTEF, Trondheim, Norway
focused heavily on increased current efficiency and improved
energy efficiency in reduction cells, used for aluminum processing.
Quantitative knowledge of the flow pattern in the liquid metal and
electrolyte of aluminum reduction cells has been important for guid-
ing the performance improvements. Engineers at SINTEF implemented
a solver for the electromagnetic field in early versions of FLUENT,
enabling the study of magnetohydrodynamic flow in these cells.
During the last two years, electrochemical models have been added
to FLUENT and combined with a mixture multiphase flow model
to produce a special code for electrolysis cell design.
Bubbly flows occurring in metallurgical applications have also
been a focus of research and development at SINTEF. Recently,
FLUENT has been used to calculate mixing in a gas-stirred ladle
for steel alloying and particle flotation for cleaning molten metal.
Based on models for coalescence and break-up, a transport equa-
tion for the mean bubble size in turbulent flow has been devel- Prediction of flow in aluminum
electrolysis cells, showing gas
oped within FLUENT. Bubble sizes in stirred flows have been measured concentration, lines of constant
in the departments water model laboratory, and are now used electric potential, and velocity
vectors in the electrolyte
for CFD model validation. Simulation of bubbly flows and free
surfaces guided SINTEF during analysis of operational problems
that occurred in the fermenter loop at Norferms bioprotein plant.
Using FLUENT, SINTEF and Norferm developed a new separator Pathlines in an old design of the furnace
hood and the off-gas channels of a more.info@
vessel, allowing the gas produced by the bacteria to escape before
ferrosilicon plant; at the base of the
the flow entered the pump. furnace, contours of temperature are www.sintef.no/units/matek
plotted on an iso-surface of constant
reaction rate

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 17

chemical

Microreactors
Take CFD to the
MAX By Ken-Ichiro Sotowa, and Katsuki Kusakabe,
Department of Applied Chemistry, Kyushu University, Japan;
and David Street, Fluent Asia Pacific
A microreactor fabricated on a silicon substrate
(sealed with a glass plate) at Kyushu University
n recent years there has been an
I increased interest throughout
Japan in the research and devel-
opment of microreactors. During this
time, the Japanese government,
through three MITI (Ministry of
International Trade and Industry)
national projects, has committed near-
ly 10 million US dollars to the wide-
spread investigation of these unique
devices. Leading the research effort
are several prominent Japanese uni-
versities, including Tokyo University,
Kyoto University, The Tokyo Institute
of Technology, and Kyushu University.
Many leading Japanese chemical com-
panies are also participating in this
important long-term national project.
Microreactors, as the name implies,
are very small chemical reactors. They
are typically only a few centimeters
long and the channels through
which the fluids flow are on the order
of 10 to 100 microns in diameter. The
reactors themselves are made using
materials such as silicon, quartz, poly-
mers, and metals that have well-defined
physical and chemical properties. They
are manufactured using micro-fab-
rication techniques developed in the
fields of microelectronics and MEMS
(micro-electro-mechanical systems)
engineering. The reactor manufacturing
processes may therefore involve
photolithography, etching, and thin
film deposition to build the flow chan-
nels, micro-heaters, and various
micro-sensors. Micromilling has been
used for the fabrication of certain
microscale structures. Microscale
pumps, driven by gears or piezoelectric
devices, have also been developed.
Some of these microfluidic devices are
not much bigger than the head of
a ball-point pen, but they can be effec-
tively used to drive the flow through
the tiny microreactor channels.
There are numerous applications
for microreactors, ranging from bio-
medical diagnostic devices to cat-
alytic gas phase reactors operating
at elevated temperatures. There is
considerable interest in the use of
microreactors for the production of
on-demand hydrogen for fuel cells,
and on-demand drug production and
delivery. In fact, some of the
research into the more far-reaching
applications of microreactors is
going on behind closed doors, in
top-secret programs at some of
Japans largest and most well-
respected companies.
There are several reasons why so
much effort is being devoted to devel-
op such tiny reactors with such lim-
ited production capacities. Because
of their size, it is possible to construct
a chemical plant consisting of
microreactors that is small enough
to be moved from place to place.
In the future, portable plants will be
used as the primary workhorses in
the distributed production of chem-
icals, in which chemicals are produced
at the point of consumption. In addi-
tion to providing on-demand pro-
duction of hydrogen for fuel cells,
these plants will be used for on-site
production of hazardous chemicals,
which currently incur considerable
risk to humans, animals, and the envi-
ronment when transported on
roads or rails. Another advantage of
microreactors is the high surface area
to volume ratio that can be achieved
with tiny channel sizes. This makes
it easier to control the fluid tem-

18 Fluent NEWS fall 2002


perature, which is an important
parameter influencing reaction rate
and selectivity. In addition, appro-
priate arrangement of the microchan-
nels makes it possible to attain
microscale mixing of two fluids almost
instantaneously.
CFD has been widely used to bet-
ter understand microreactor flows
and help design ways to improve
their efficiency. For example, veloc-
ities through a single microreactor
chip are typically in the range of a
few milliliters per second. To
increase the throughput and make
the devices commercially viable, many
channels can be used together in
parallel. In an effort to design head-
ers for dividing the flow uniformly
among the channels, some research
groups have developed bifurcating
channels, similar in principle to the
human lung, whereas others have
mass transfer
Schematic representation of a
microreactor contacting device
Flow patterns within an oil bubble injected into an aqueous stream
developed simpler, open headers with
porous regions or baffles to create
more uniform flow. In both cases,
CFD is being used to aid in the design.
It is also being used to determine
the residence time distribution
(RTD) through microreactor chan-
nels. Whereas large scale reactors
typically operate in the turbulent
regime, the flow inside a microre-
actor is usually laminar. Without tur-
bulent eddies, very tight control over
the residence time distribution can
be achieved, so that the reactor con-
ditions can be well understood. CFD
offers one of the quickest and eas-
iest ways to determine RTD for sim-
ple or complex channel designs.
At Kyushu University, FLUENT has
recently been used to investigate
microreactors that work with immis-
cible fluids. Using the volume of fluid
(VOF) model, a small bubble of hexa-
Experimental observation of mixing at a Y-junction
(channel width=400 micrometers)
ne (oil) is injected into a flowing aque-
ous stream. The oil bubble grows
in size and eventually breaks away
from the oil inlet stream. Conventional
chemical engineering modeling
approaches assume that mass trans-
fer from the bubble of hexane to
the bulk fluid is purely by diffusion.
By contrast, the FLUENT results
suggest that there is considerable
convective mass transport occur-
ring as well. This mechanism dra-
matically enhances mass transfer by
more than a factor of 100.
In another project, two streams
are brought into direct contact as they
flow side-by-side through a microre-
actor. When these streams solutions
of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and BTB,
a ph-indicator are brought into close
contact, a BTB-alkali reaction takes
place at the interface, even though
the fluids are miscible with each other.
Simulated concentration profiles in the two-fluid stream
chemical
This is because of the laminar
nature of the flow in microchannels.
FLUENT predictions of the distribu-
tion of NaOH concentration have been
found to agree well with experimental
results. In some applications, it is nec-
essary to enhance the mixing rate
of two fluids by disturbing the inter-
face. For these applications, CFD can
be used to study the channel struc-
ture, which effectively disturbs the
interface and improves the mixing.
Simulations like these are just
two examples of the considerable
research effort currently being
directed at microreactor applications.
Many other areas in this growing
field are being investigated using
CFD, since it can provide engineers
and scientists with a cost effective
technological advantage in their
attempt to understand these impor-
tant devices.
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 19
marine

Match racing trials of Alinghi boats in

Auckland (Photo by Ph. Schiller / Alinghi)

CFD Makes
Waves in the
Americas
Cup By Geoffrey W. Cowles, Nicola Parolini, Modeling and Scientific Computing,
Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Switzerland;
and Mark L. Sawley, Granulair Technologies, Lausanne, Switzerland

20 Fluent NEWS fall 2002

 marine

Under the direction of Grant Simmer, the coordinator of the Alinghi Design Team,
two new boats have been designed and constructed for the 2003 Americas
Cup race. This has been the result of a Team project, involving all twelve of
Alinghis designers, researchers from the EPFL, and many Alinghi sailors.

mericas Cup yacht racing has, Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations

A over the past 150 years,

proved to be a formidable
testing ground. To challenge the best
in this field, a high standard of tech-
nological knowledge and innovation
has become essential. The engage-
ment of the Ecole Polytechnique
Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) as Official
Scientific Advisor to the Alinghi
Challenge for the 2003 Americas
Cup, has provided the EPFL with the
opportunity to continue its efforts
in the numerical flow simulation of
high-performance racing yachts.
Resolving the mathematical
equations governing the flow
around an International Americas
Cup Class (IACC) boat is complicated
by the complex physical modeling
required to account for hydrodynamic
and aerodynamic flows, wave gen-
eration on the water surface, and
fluid-structure interaction with the
mast and sails. While potential flow
methods are extensively used, to
obtain a competitive edge in an appli-
cation area where small performance
differences can result in significant
gains, it is important to account for
more complex flow behavior.
Solving the Reynolds-Averaged
provides detailed insights that when
combined with standard numerical
methods, experimental testing,
empirical techniques and experience
can suggest ways to improve boat
performance.
At the EPFL, FLUENT is used to
compute both hydrodynamic and Surface pressure and pathlines around the appendages
aerodynamic flows around the
boat. Mesh generation is general-
ly undertaken using GAMBIT. In close
collaboration with the Alinghi
Design Team, detailed numerical stud-
ies are being performed in three prin- To have a realistic hope of winning the Americas
ciple areas: hydrodynamic flow
around the boat appendages, aero-
Cup, we need to excel in many areas. Thats
dynamic flow around the mast and the reason the partnership with the Ecole
sails, and the generation of waves
on the water surface. By calculat-
Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) is so
ing the pathlines, surface pressure, important to us. The EPFLs academic expertise
and global forces on the boat, the
helps us to validate ideas quickly in broad fields
basic physical phenomena can be
qualitatively and quantitatively such as material resistance, structural integrity,
examined. aero- and hydrodynamics, etc. In particular,
Numerical flow simulations are
being conducted for different bulb- the results of computational fluid dynamics
keel-winglet configurations in order simulations have provided Alinghi with essential
to determine the shape with the least
drag (within the applied constraints information necessary for optimal design choice.
of weight, structural strength, and
lift). Such a study performed for a Grant Simmer, Coordinator of the Alinghi Design Team

Waves generated on the water surface by a Wigley hull

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 21

marine
A birds-eye view of two sailboats on the
water, sailing downwind; pathlines indicate
the interaction between the boats
variety of sailing conditions requires
not only numerous detailed simulations
but also a significant effort in ana-
lyzing the results.
The presence of strong viscous
effects, such as flow separation on
the mainsail behind the mast for
upwind sailing, and around the
spinnaker and mainsail for down-
wind sailing, require the use of RANS
simulations. For our studies, the fly-
ing shape of the sails is considered
and aero-elasticity effects are neg-
lected. The flow around the sails and
exposed hull on an IACC boat is cal-
culated, as well as the interaction
between two identical boats.
A boat hull is subject to two main
resistance components: wave drag
and viscous drag. While the viscous
component can be accurately
approximated by empirical formu-
lae, wave resistance is more difficult
to predict. The blunt bow of an IACC
boat generates breaking waves
that are difficult to treat using the
moving-mesh surface-tracking tech-
nique commonly used in marine sim-
ulation software. The volume
of fluid (VOF) approach used by
Comparison of computed (blue line) and experimental (red circles) values of the
waterline on the surface of a 2.5m Wigley hull
22 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
FLUENT avoids this problem. Initial
calculations of the flow around a
2.5m long simplified hull form (the
Wigley hull) have provided wave
resistance values in good agreement
with towing tank data. Its applica-
tion to more complex IACC shapes
is currently being investigated.
It is interesting to compare the
computational resources currently used
with those employed at the EPFL dur-
ing the last Americas Cup challenge
more than three years ago. While the
computational time per simulation
has remained unchanged, the max-
imum problem size has increased from
two million to over five million cells.
With the recent availability of rela-
tively low-cost desktop workstations
that are able to perform sizeable flow
simulations, the largest problem sizes
considered in the previous challenge
can now be computed comfortably
on a desktop PC. Nevertheless, high-
end parallel systems are still being
used to explore more complex phys-
ical phenomena with increasing detail
and precision to provide the elusive
competitive edge required to claim
sailings greatest prize.
The Ongoing
Success of the EPFL
By Alain Drotz and Marie-Christine Sawley, EPFL,
Lausanne, Switzerland
urrounded by moun-
S tains on the shore of Lake
Geneva, the
Polytechnique Fdrale de
Ecole
Lausanne (EPFL) campus encom-
passes an area of 136 acres. The
EPFL was founded as an engi-
neering school 150 years ago, and became a Federal University
in 1969. Its history is marked by extraordinary periods dominat-
ed by growth and new development. Today, it is one of the two
leading scientific and technological universities in Switzerland, offer-
ing degrees in fields such as fundamental sciences, engineering
science, communication and computer science, environmental
sciences, civil engineering, and architecture.
For over 10 years, teaching and research at the EPFL campus
have been fostering innovative business creation and technolo-
gy transfer. There were 42 patent applications in 2001, and a Science
Park has been constructed on campus that shelters approximately
40 start-up companies. In 2001, the total value of research con-
tracts with industrial partners reached 33 million Swiss Francs.
The EPFL has a long experience in numerical simulation for sci-
entific and engineering applications, in areas ranging from tur-
bines to plasma physics and fusion, atomistic and molecular simulations
to atmospheric pollution modeling, and automotive simulations
to aeronautics. The Institute has also been associated with the tech-
nical adventures of several Swiss citizens, such as the space mis-
sion of astronaut Claude Nicolier and the first non-stop,
around-the-world balloon trip by Bertrand Piccard. Since last year,
the EPFL has been the Official Scientific Advisor to the Alinghi Challenge
for the 2003 Americas Cup.
FOCUS on CFD

aerospace industry
For Aerospace and Defense

Newsletter Supplement

overview
S2 Taking CFD to New Heights in
the Aerospace Industry

aviation safety
S3 European External Aerodynamics
Projects at INTA
Enhancing Thrust Reverser
Performance

S5 electronics
FLUENT and Icepak Team Up for
Electronics Cooling Analysis

wind tunnels
S6 Over a Decade of FLUENT
Simulations at NASA Langley

external aerodynamics
S8 SmartFish?
AIAA Drag Workshop Revisited
Hellfire and Back

defense
S10 Tank and Artillery Cannon Muzzle
Brakes Reducing Gun Recoil
Quietly
Dynamic Adaption in FLUENT 6.1

fuel injectors
S12 High Performance Fuel Injector
Design
 overview
aerospace industry
Taking CFD to New
in the Aerospace Industry
By Greg Stuckert, US Aerospace Industry Director
omputational fluid dynamics has a long
C and illustrious history of development
and use in the aerospace industry. Indeed,
many engineers associate CFD with its well-known
application to aerodynamics, namely the calculation
of the lifting force on a wing. However, as meth-
ods and resources have increased in power and
ease-of-use, practitioners have expanded the scope
of application beyond the calculation of lift. Today,
CFD helps engineers predict not only lift, but
also variational changes in aerodynamic drag
generally, a much more challenging task.
Fluent is also finding applications to many dif-
ficult operational problems that, in the past, were
too unwieldy to analyze with computational tools.
In this supplement, we present a small sam-
pling of interesting applications of FLUENT to
aerodynamic design and to the resolution of com-
plex operational problems:
The impact of trailing vortices on the
safe operation of successive aircraft
taking-off and landing on a runway;
The prediction of the total lift and drag
on a transonic wing-body configuration
tested in several wind-tunnels;
The design and analysis of a novel
aerodynamic configuration similar to
that of a blended wing-body;
The proper installation of engines on the
wings of an aircraft to avoid problems
arising from the operation of thrust
reversers;
S2 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
Heights
The safe operation of a military
helicopter upon firing a missile whose
plume could impinge on the airframe or
the tail rotor;
ATK Thiokol Propulsion
engineers have successfully
The packaging of electronic components used FLUENT in a variety of
and control unit motors to provide a analyses that support safe
suitable thermal environment and
ensure reliable operation;
and reliable design and
The optimization of liquid fuel nozzles operation of the ATK family
used in the aerospace and power of solid propellant rocket
generation industries; and
motors. Ranging from the
Efforts to understand and suppress the
noise produced by heavy artillery. small-scale study of gas flow
In addition, we are pleased to offer a sum- in joint gaps with widths that
mary of more than a decade of FLUENT use at are a fraction of an inch, to
NASA Langley in Hampton, Virginia. Over the
years, work on the high-enthalpy wind tunnel
the analysis of internal motor
at NASA Langley, used to test high altitude propul- flow fields with scales on the
sion systems and the behavior of structural and order of several feet, FLUENT
thermal protection system components, has ranged offers a proven and reliable
in scope from combustion to hypersonic flow.
Fluent has enabled the solution of these
method for characterizing
challenging problems by providing the tools flow environments and
and technical support needed to simultaneously providing heat transfer and
model complex geometries and physics.
structural load boundary
Descriptions of many other challenging prob-
lems can be found on our web site at conditions for component
www.fluent.com/solutions/aerospace/index.htm. designers.
If you have used FLUENT in a creative and Andrew M. Eaton, Ph.D.
innovative way, please contact us at Supervisor, Gas Dynamics Section
fluentnews@fluent.com. ATK Thiokol Propulsion, USA
Pressure coefficient contours on the surface and
vorticity magnitude contours on axial slices for a
missile outfitted with grid fins, flying at Mach 1.5
with a 10 canard (front wing) deflection and a 4
angle of attack. The vorticity contours illustrate the
location of the canard trailing vortices. When
planar fins are used at this Mach number and
angle of attack, these vortices interact with the fins
and give rise to an adverse rolling moment for the
missile. The missile roll is reduced when grid fins
are used instead of planar fins, because the
vortices are broken up as they interact with the
grid fin structure. The flow visualization was done
using EnSight from Computational Engineering
International (CEI).
Courtesy of US Army Research Laboratory
 aviation safety

aerospace industry
Wake vortices generated by a
simplified aircraft in flight

he fluid dynamics area of INTA (Instituto

T Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial) has partici-

pated in a number of European aeronautical proj-
ects during the past several years, and has used FLUENT
as a part of this work. Other CFD codes have been
used in the projects as well, and a great deal of exper-
imental data has been made available to scientists
and engineers. Together, the project challenges, along
with the wealth of information shared by the par-
ticipants, have allowed INTA to realize FLUENTs poten-
tial for several important applications.

European External
The C-WAKE European project is one example.
Coordinated by DaimlerChrysler Aerospace Airbus in
Bremen, Germany, the goal of the project is to char-
acterize and control vortex wakes generated by pas-

Aerodynamics
senger aircraft. These wakes are of particular interest
during take-off and landing maneuvers at busy airports
when other aircraft are nearby, and during in-flight
periods on heavily traveled routes when the horizon-
tal and vertical spacing limits between aircraft are in
question. The timing between take-offs and landings
has been established at commercial airports for max-
imum safety, but heavy air traffic has made increased
demands on these guidelines. With this in mind, the
Projects at INTA By Fernando Monge, INTA, Madrid, Spain
C-WAKE project has focused on estimating the opti-
mum separation between aircraft for in-flight condi-
tions and on airport runways. It has also focused on INTA is involved in other projects as well:
developing designs for new planes that generate re- The aerodynamics of high lift systems for passenger aircraft of
duced vortex wakes, so that reductions in aircraft sep- all kinds is the focus of the European High Lift Program, or
aration can be considered. For this project, FLUENT EUROLIFT. To address the primary goal of reducing the
has been used to calculate wakes from simplified air- development time and cost of these systems, INTA has tested
plane geometries. The CFD results will be compared with the efficacy of 2D and 3D analyses to provide helpful design
experimental data extracted from wind tunnel tests. information in a timely manner.
INTA is also applying FLUENT to the development In its work with the Group for Aeronautical Research and
of second-generation supersonic passenger carriers. These Technology in Europe (GARTEUR), INTA has worked to adapt
carriers are being investigated in response to increased and validate CFD codes to study the adverse aerodynamic
demand for long distance flights with the desire to have effects that result from icing. The results will subsequently be
shorter flight times. While these aircraft will undoubt- validated against wind tunnel data.
edly meet the performance goals of longer distances
in shorter times, they also must meet strict environ-
mental guidelines and comply with stringent noise emis-
sion regulations. The European Project for Improvement
of Supersonic Transport Low Speed Efficiency, or EPIS-
TLE, is a group of European aircraft manufacturers and
researchers who have joined forces to investigate the
flight characteristics of these carriers in the low speed
regime, in conditions typical of take-off and landing.
One focus is on high lift devices near the leading edge
of the wings that cause controlled flow separation,
enhanced lift, but significant additional drag. The goal
is to develop novel designs for these devices, test their
operating characteristics when used with delta wing
planes, and validate the findings against wind tunnel
data. FLUENT simulations are currently being run to
study high lift devices that allow an increase of 15
The surface pressure distribution for a 2D slat plus flap
20% in the aerodynamic efficiency of supersonic air- configuration with an 18.28 angle of attack; the Spalart-
craft flying at low speed. Allmaras and RNG-k- turbulence models generate identical
results and are in good agreement with data

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 S3

 aviation safety

Enhancing
aerospace industry

Thrust
Reverser
Performance
By Dr. Chen Chuck, Research Engineer, and Dr. Douglas R. McCarthy,
Efflux pattern on the airplane for a Mach 0.15 case

Research Engineer, The Boeing Company, Seattle, WA

t is, by now, standard practice at Boeing The CFD process begins with a FLUENTs flow solver. Depending on the

I to design aerodynamic surfaces such as

the wings, engine nacelles (enclo-
sures), and fuselage using CFD instead of
CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/
Computer Aided Manufacturing) model
of the aircraft. In addition to the engine,
number of CPUs available, a final solution
can be obtained within a few hours after
the geometry definition and mesh gen-
relying on expensive wind tunnel and flight fuselage, and wing, the CAD/CAM model eration are complete.
tests. It is less common, and often more includes such devices as flaps, slats, and Because the entire CFD analysis cycle
difficult, to use CFD to analyze the more spoilers. An unstructured mesh is then built can be completed in about three days,
geometrically complex parts of the airplane, around the CAD/CAM model. For com- designers can use this tool repeatedly as
such as high lift systems (flaps and slats), patibility with other CFD processes at Boeing, a way to optimize the design. Wind tun-
engine compartments, and auxiliary a commercial software package from ICEM nel testing and expense are reduced, but
power units. To perform such an analy- CFD Engineering is used for mesh gen- the key benefits are time and risk mitigation.
sis, engineers need to compute airflows eration. Starting from a new airplane CAD If a need to change the design should
around and through systems that are dis- geometry, such a mesh, which typically become apparent after the tooling is built
tinguished by very complex geometry and contains from 3 to 8 million cells, can be and the aircraft is in the test phase, the
flow patterns. A prime example involves created in a day or two. Because the grid delay in entry into service and the
predicting the behavior of the efflux from generation software contains a replay capa- expense of retooling would be unac-
engine thrust reversers. bility, minor changes to the geometry can ceptable. CFD modeling increases early
A typical commercial airplane deploys be remeshed quickly. The mesh is parti- confidence in the design and shortens the
its thrust reversers briefly after touch down. tioned into sections for parallel comput- development cycle to deliver a quality prod-
A piece of engine cowling moves rearward ing, and the analysis is completed using uct on schedule.
and blocker doors drop down, directing
the engine airflow into a honeycomb struc-
ture called a cascade. The cascade directs
the flow forward, which acts to slow the
aircraft and decrease lift for more effec-
tive braking. The reverser is used precisely
at the time when high lift devices (i.e., wing
leading and trailing edge flaps and slats)
are fully deployed. Consequently, the plumes
of hot exhaust must be directed so as to
not impinge on these devices. Other effects
to avoid are reingestion, in which the
reversed plume reenters the engine inlet,
engine ingestion of debris blown up from
the runway, and plume envelopment of
the vertical tail, which affects directional
control. To avoid these effects, knowledge
of exactly where the exhaust plumes go
is needed early in the design cycle
because it affects such basic decisions as
the placement of the engine on the wing. The surface grid on the airplane, runway, symmetry plane, and downstream boundary

S4 Fluent NEWS fall 2002

 electronics

aerospace industry
hermal control is important for the safe and reli-

T able operation of electronic equipment. However,

with increased functionality and the continued minia-

FLUENT
turization of electronic systems, increases in the amount
of heat generated per unit volume have become an issue.
Removing the internally generated heat requires an effec-
tive path along which the heat can flow from the com-
ponents to their surroundings. Cooling techniques such

Icepak
as conduction, natural or forced convection, radiation,
and liquid cooling are typically used, depending on the
situation. At Hamilton Sundstrand, FLUENT and Icepak
have both been used to simulate virtual prototypes of
electronic equipment and the cooling mechanisms that
and
could potentially be used to transfer heat. CFD has made

Team Up for
it possible to evaluate a number of possible designs before
building an actual prototype for testing.
Using FLUENT, the thermal performance of one of
the electronic control boxes of an aircraft was recently

Electronics
analyzed. The controller houses the Motor Drive
Module (MDM) of the flap/slat control unit, which is
used to extend the flaps of a commercial aircraft dur-
ing takeoff and landing, and to retract them when they

Cooling Analysis
are no longer needed. The module fits inside the wing
of the aircraft, and includes a powerful motor, with con-
trol circuitry that dissipates a large amount of heat. The
module geometry was created using Pro/ENGINEER and By Dr. Samir El-Khabiry, Hamilton Sundstrand, Rockford, IL
imported into GAMBIT for mesh generation. The box
is cooled by fan-driven forced air, so the characteristic
fan curve (for pressure vs. flow rate) was used as an
input for the CFD analysis. The simulation results showed
velocity and temperature distributions throughout the
module, and helped engineers select the appropriate
electronic components for the unit. Detailed visuali-
zation of the results helped to understand the system
behavior and improve it.
Icepak has also been used for many electronics cool-
ing projects at Hamilton Sundstrand. For example, the
air-cooling system of a control unit for an electro-hydraulic
drive unit (EHDU) inverter was recently studied. This unit
consists of a 65 kW variable speed permanent magnet
electric motor integrated with a 35 gallon/minute hydraulic
pump. Using Icepak, engineers were able to easily posi- Temperature distribution inside the motor drive module
tion and reposition a number of internal components
and fans in order to improve the circulation of the cool-
ing air. The improved circulation allowed them to switch
to a heat sink one-third as large as the one in the orig-
inal design. When it became necessary to replace sev-
eral components on a printed circuit board of the EHDU,
Icepak was again used to determine the impact of the
change on the thermal conditions inside the enclosure.
The analysis showed that the additional heat generat-
ed by the new components raised temperatures
beyond acceptable levels. Several alternative designs were
evaluated using CFD, and an effective cooling mecha-
nism was identified and applied to the actual board.
Experimental data collected from these and other sys-
tems have shown good agreement with the simulation
results, thus demonstrating the usefulness of CFD for
analyzing complicated systems. This kind of analysis has
helped improve product performance and safety, and Temperature distribution on the heat sink of the EHDU
has saved a significant amount of time and money for
the company.
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 S5
 wind tunnels
aerospace industry
Over a Decade
By Richard Puster and Marco Egoavil, NASA Langley, Hampton, VA
The spray bar, the original fuel injection system on the
8-Ft HTT
Temperature contours show how the pilot burner
at the top of the new fuel injector array ignites
the methane in a simulation of the upstream half
of the combustor; the flow is from left to right
The temperature distribution in the second half of
the combustor can be found by using exit profiles
from simulations of the first half
S6 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
he 8-Foot High Temperature Tunnel
T (8-Ft HTT) at NASA Langley is a com-
bustion-heated, hypersonic wind tun-
nel that has been used for many years to
simulate supersonic flight conditions at alti-
tudes in excess of 90,000 feet. The test sec-
tion, 8 feet in diameter and 12 feet long,
accommodates large, air breathing, hyper-
sonic propulsion systems, such as the
National Aerospace Plane (NASP) concept
engine. It is also used to test structural and
thermal protection system components, such
as the exterior tiles used for the Space Shuttle.
The high-enthalpy environment is generated
by a methane-air flame in a pressurized com-
bustion chamber that is expanded through
a hypersonic nozzle at the chamber exit. For
air breathing propulsion tests, additional oxy-
gen is added so that the molar concentra-
tion of oxygen is equal to that of air.
Researchers at NASA Langley have used
FLUENT for many years to study several aspects
of the flow inside the 8-Ft HTT. The fuel injec-
tor, the heart of the combustion chamber,
was among the first components to be ana-
lyzed. The original fuel injector consisted of
fifteen concentric rings, each of which was
perforated with a number of small holes
for spraying fuel into the combustion space.
Called the spray bar, it was feared that the
flame temperature near the rings would
increase in the oxygen-rich environment of
the chamber, such that melting of the spray
bar material might occur. To prevent this
from happening, tabs were installed at the
sides of each ring that led to the formation
of small side vortices. These acted to stabi-
lize the high velocity fuel injection sites with
lifted flames. The flame produced by the spray
bar was first studied using a 2D cross-sectional
model in FLUENT 3.02. In one simulation,
the transient shutdown of the combustor was
modeled, as the fuel velocity from the spray
bar was gradually reduced. The FLUENT results
indicated that the lower fuel velocities
caused the flame to attach to the rings dur-
ing the shutdown period. As a result of the
of FLUENT
simulation, engineers developed a more rapid
shutdown procedure, and monitored the spray
bar environment more closely than before
during this process.
The original spray bar was subsequently
retired, and replaced with a completely revised
fuel injection and ignition system. The new
system, which is still in use today, consists
of an array of airfoil fuel injectors, an igni-
tor-booster system, and a perforated plate
positioned upstream of the fuel injectors to
critically damp the pressure oscillations
inside the combustor. As the name suggests,
the airfoil fuel injectors have a cross-section
in the shape of an airfoil, with holes at the
blunt trailing edge for the spraying of fuel
into the air that has passed over the airfoil.
Following their success on the spray bar, tabs
have been positioned at the sides of the widest
portion of the airfoils to help stabilize the flame.
The fuel injectors produce high-speed
methane jets, which are ignited by a pilot burn-
er positioned at the top of the injector array.
The ignitor burns methane and produces hot
(3000 R), rich reaction products (H2, CO, and
H2O), which ignite quickly in the nearby
methane jets, producing a stable, high tem-
perature zone. The high temperature zone
then acts to ignite the remaining bulk of
methane emanating from the array, giving
rise to a large, stable methane-air flame down-
stream in the combustor. This ignition
process is one of the fastest known for a hydro-
carbon, and has been used in other super-
and hyper-sonic applications. The initial con-
cept for this system was constructed in a pilot-
scale, 9-Inch High Temperature Tunnel, and
validated using FLUENT 5. The FLUENT pre-
dictions of axial temperature profiles for this
ignition scenario are in good agreement with
experimental data.
To model the flow in the nozzle region,
the exit flow from the combustor is required
as a boundary condition. Due to the length
of the combustor, engineers have solved for
the reacting flow using two successive sim-
ulations in FLUENT 5. The first includes the

Simulations at
NASA Langley
action of the fuel injectors and ignitor, extend-
ing to the halfway point in the combustor.
The second simulation takes the exit profiles
for all variables from the first simulation and
uses them as inlet boundary conditions for
the second. The exit flow from the second
half can then be used for simulations of the
nozzle. The nozzle itself is air-cooled by tiny
jets of transpiration air injected through small
holes in the wall. To simulate this cooling
method, eight mass flow inlets were positioned
along the nozzle wall to correspond to the
eight coolant circuits used in the actual HTT.
The simulations verified suspicions that
excessive injection flow rates (over-cooling)
would lead to separation upstream of the noz-
zle throat. Based on these results, it was deter-
mined that the coolant flow rates needed to
be adjusted very carefully to adequately cool
the nozzle and yield the desired conditions
in the test region.
In yet another project, simulations of the
combustor were used to study the spacing
of the inlets used to deliver oxygen to the
chamber. The oxygen is transported to the
combustor area in the liquid state, in piping
that runs behind an insulating liner that sur-
rounds the flame. When gaseous oxygen is
introduced to the hot combustion gases at
the injector site, it is cold by comparison, and
can cause a significant buoyancy effect. This
Temperature contours on axial slices in the interior of the
combustor show the strong effect of buoyancy when the
cold oxidant bypass is large; the high temperatures can
damage the upper wall of the vessel liner and be
unacceptable for testing
wind tunnels
aerospace industry
drives the hottest gases to the top if the cham-
ber and can lead to overheating on the upper
combustor wall. FLUENT 5 was used to test
the uniformity of the temperature distribu-
tion as a function of the cold oxidant bypass,
or spacing between the fuel injectors and
liner. The results showed that by reducing
the spacing to the smallest value tested, bet-
ter mixing could be achieved, leading to more
uniform temperature distributions through-
out the combustion chamber.
Many other applications have been
simulated and validated over the years at The new fuel injection system, showing the airfoil fuel
NASA Langley using FLUENT, resulting in a injectors (red), ignitor (on top of the injector housing),
substantial body of work. Some have been damping plate (grey), and liquid oxygen piping system
(purple)
with chemical vapor deposition; some
with basic combustion; some with Scramjets;
some with nozzles; some with high tem-
perature structures; and some with advanced
aircraft and missiles.
Editors Note: Richard Puster and Marco Egoavil
have worked for a combined total of 55 years
at NASA Langley. While many FLUENT simu-
lations have been run at NASA Langley during
their tenure, the organization also provided the
funding for the development of FLUENT/UNS,
the first segregated FLUENT solver to work on
an unstructured grid, and a precursor to
FLUENT 5. Puster and Egoavil are both plan-
ning to retire at the end of this calendar year.
When the oxidant bypass is small, mixing of the cold gas
with the hot combustion products is improved, leading to
more uniform temperature distributions throughout the
combustor
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 S7
 external aerodynamics
aerospace industry

SmartFish?
By Koni Schafroth, Team SmartFish, Bern, Switzerland

martFish is a revolutionary new design suggests that manufacturing costs

S airplane concept that was inspired

by the cornering capabilities of
the tuna fish. The SmartFish project is
staffed by a creative team of inventors,
designers, and scientists, who aim to
develop an economic and safe aircraft
for a wide range of applications, from
general aviation airplanes with two seats
to business jets with twenty seats.
SmartFish differs from convention-
al aircraft by its innovative aerodynamic
design, while relying on standard tech-
nologies for building materials and
propulsion. Preliminary wind tunnel tests
and scale model flight data suggest that
a SmartFish aircraft has many poten-
tial advantages over conventional air-
craft of comparable size and propulsion
system, such as improved efficiency,
higher air speed, and longer range.
SmartFish makes use of a blended wing
body lifting surface that improves the
lift and drag characteristics of the sys-
tem dramatically. The simplicity of the
(for design and assembly), maintenance
costs, and operating costs will be poten-
tially lower than those for conventional
aircraft.
The SmartFish team has collaborated
with scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique
Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) to simu-
late several configurations of SmartFish
designs using FLUENT 6. Calculations
based on an Euler model for the tran-
sonic regime were used to optimize the
volume distribution of the aircraft. For
the low speed range, simulations
were carried out using the RANS solver.
These calculations will allow engineers
to analyze the flow around the aircraft
for a range of angles of attack. In the
next phase of the project, a two-seater
Surface pressure and pathlines illustrate the flow
Proof of Concept model will be con-
for a low speed (Mach 0.22) SmartFish aircraft
structed and flown. Once the physical operating with a 15-degree angle of attack
testing and simulation efforts have been
completed, the team has high hopes
that the SmartFish jet will revolution-
ize how and what people fly.

AIAA Drag Workshop Revisited

By Thomas Scheidegger, Fluent Inc.
luent participated in a Drag Prediction the original calculations were performed with

F Workshop sponsored by the AIAA Applied

Pressure contours obtained with the Lockheed Martin mesh
and the FLUENT 6.0 segregated solver; M=0.75, =2
Aerodynamics Technical Committee in the
summer of 20011. This workshop focused on
CFD analyses of a wing/body aircraft config-
uration tested in three different wind tunnels.
FLUENT 5.5 results were presented that
made use of a non-overlapping multi-block hex
mesh of 3.4M cells provided by the Technical
Committee. The results were recently recom-
puted on this mesh and on a different mesh
of 1.8M cells provided by Lockheed Martin.
Much better agreement with experiment was
achieved on both meshes.
The Technical Committee specified that the
3.4M cell mesh must resolve the turbulent
boundary layer all the way through the vis-
cous sublayer to the surface of the model. Hence,
the two-layer near-wall modeling approach
in conjunction with the realizable k- turbu-
lence model. The flow was assumed to be fully
turbulent over the entire surface. While
FLUENT was one of the few commercial codes
capable of computing converged solutions
on the supplied mesh, the predicted drag was
too large by about 150 drag counts. Fluent
has continued to study this case with the goal
of improving the accuracy of the results.
With the release of FLUENT 6.0, two fea-
tures were introduced that have dramatical-
ly improved the accuracy of the drag polar:
A revised algorithm was implemented
to compute the wall-normal distance.
This change only impacts simulations
that resolve the viscous sublayer.

S8 Fluent NEWS fall 2002


uestions were recently raised
Q in the UK regarding the fir-
ing of Hellfire anti-tank
missiles from Apache helicopters.
Concerns were that debris ejected dur-
ing the launch of a missile might cause
damage to the main or tail rotor, result-
ing in a possible crash. Engineers at
Fluent Europe performed an inde-
pendent investigation into the poten-
tial dangers through simulations
using FLUENT.
A fully-loaded Apache helicopter
in hovering flight mode was modeled
using over four million cells. Two Hellfire
anti-tank missiles, one on either side
of the fuselage, were simulated dur-
ing fire-up in their pre-launch posi-
tions. The rotation of the main rotor
was represented using the sliding mesh
model and that of the tail rotor was
represented using the multiple reference
frames model. This approach allowed
for the complex interaction between
the main rotor downwash, the forced
Second-order accurate recon-
struction of the flow density
was implemented in the
segregated solver. Prior to the
release of FLUENT 6.0, only
the coupled solver had this
capability.
With second-order accurate recon-
struction of the density, the segregated
solver now produces a drag polar vir-
tually identical to that predicted by
the coupled solver on the 3.4M cell
mesh. Furthermore, with the revision
to the wall-normal distance calcula-
tion, the drag polar predicted by the
two solvers on the 3.4M cell mesh is
much closer to experimental values.
At Mach = 0.75 and lift coefficient
CL = 0.7, the drag coefficient CD is
now within 20 counts of the mean
external aerodynamics
aerospace industry
Hellfire
and Back
By Ben Simpson, Fluent Europe
convection from the helicopter
engine exhausts, and the hot plume
from two missiles being launched.
The results illustrated several inter-
esting flow features. In par-
ticular, the flows from
the engine exhausts and
missile plumes were both found to be
significantly affected by the rotor down-
wash, which redirects them toward
the left side of the helicopter. When
the left missile is fired, this flow pat-
tern helps keep debris released with
the missile plumes from colliding with
the helicopter and rear rotor (which
is on the left side of the aircraft). The
diverted streams also cause asymmetric Pathlines released from the missile
heating on the tail of the helicopter. exhausts (colored by release position)
When the right missile is fired, some
interference with the rear of the air- investigations into safety issues for a wide range of flight conditions.
craft may occur for certain flight con- For example, debris ejected when the missiles are launched could be
ditions, and more studies are needed tracked using the discrete particle model in FLUENT. The likelihood
to further study this possibility. The proj- of the debris hitting the tail rotor or the main rotor could then be
ect as a whole illustrates how CFD can assessed using a series of runs to investigate the trajectories and pos-
be a viable source of information for sible impact points of particles of various sizes and weights.
experimental value, and within the
statistical dispersion (21 counts) of the
computational results submitted to the
Technical Committee, as analyzed by
Michael Hemsch1. Even better results
have been obtained using a slightly
modified version of the 1.8M cell wall-
function mesh supplied to the
Technical Committee by Lockheed
Martin after the workshop. The
importance of the grid is made evi-
dent in these calculations, as the
improvements to the accuracy of the
drag computed by the coupled
solver can be attributed solely to the
use of the Lockheed Martin mesh.
reference: Drag polar obtained with the Lockheed Martin
mesh; M=0.75, =2
1 http://aaac.larc.nasa.gov/tsab/cfdlarc/
aiaa-dpw/Workshop1/workshop1.html
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 S9
 defense
aerospace industry
Tank and Artillery Cannon
Muzzle Brakes
Reducing Gun Recoil
QUIETLY
By Daniel L. Cler, Benet Laboratories, US Army, Watervliet, NY; and Christoph Hiemcke, Fluent Inc.
enet Laboratories is a US Army
Experimental results showing the flow field at
350 microseconds before the shot exit2 illustrated
using a shadowgraph imaging technique, where
the second derivative of density is used to mark
wavefronts and shocks
B research laboratory involved
in the development of can-
non and mortar tubes for tanks and
artillery. Cannon recoil imparts
very high loads on tanks and artillery
vehicles. These large loads are typ-
ically managed by the mass of the
vehicle in conjunction with a recoil
system. The current trend in the
development of new tank and artillery
vehicles is toward much lower vehi-
cle weight, while at the same time
the muzzle velocities of projectiles
are increasing. These changes
combine to make it far more diffi-
cult to manage the recoil loads.
One mechanism for reducing
Contours of density gradient from FLUENT results
at 350 microseconds before the shot exit; recoil is the muzzle brake. Muzzle
displaying the density gradient corresponds to brakes are used to turn some of
the Schlieren imaging technique used to identify
the propellant flow behind an exit-
wavefronts and shocks experimentally
visualization by EnSight from CEI ing projectile sideways or aft to
reduce recoil. There are deleteri-
ous effects associated with muz-
zle brakes, however, such as very
high peak pressures and powerful
acoustic waves. The resulting
noise can potentially harm personnel
operating the vehicle. For nearly
twenty years, Benet Laboratories
has fostered the use of CFD to sim-
ulate the unsteady wave propa-
gation from cannon muzzle brakes
in order to predict peak over-pres-
sure of new muzzle brake designs.
Adapted grid at 350 microseconds before the shot exit
S10 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
By using a design tool such as
CFD, the Army hopes to develop
efficient muzzle brakes that reduce
recoil imparted to the vehicle
while at the same time keeping the
high noise levels manageable. In the
past, the only way to measure peak
over-pressure was to test cannon
hardware and record the value using
dynamic pressure instrumentation.
Typically, scaled prototype cannons
(20mm) can be fired for preliminary
results early in the development pro-
grams, but because of the high cost
involved, full scale testing is done
later on. Experimental results from
scaled cannons often jeopardize the
program, as non-ideal behavior such
as ground plane reflections, inter-
action with the vehicle hull, and dif-
ferences between scale and full-sized
ammunition alter the scale testing
results. It is hoped that by using CFD
early in the design cycle, much of
the risk involved in muzzle brake
design can be averted.
To accurately and efficiently pre-
dict the performance and peak over-
pressure of gun muzzles and
muzzle brakes, special CFD tech-
niques for modeling unsteady
wave propagation are required. By
using the adaption tools in FLUENT,
one is able to create and destroy
grid along propagating shock

Dynamic Adaption
fronts, thereby efficiently targeting
the computational effort on the fea-
tures of the unsteady blast. Without
adaption, it would not be feasible
to model unsteady wave propa-
in
By Thomas Gessner, Fluent Inc.; and Daniel L. Cler, Benet Laboratories, US Army, Watervliet, NY
gation, since the refined grid
needed throughout the region of
activity would dramatically increase
the number of cells. Using adap-
tion, the grid can be not only refined
as needed, but coarsened once a
shock wave passes a given location.
In order to develop a methodolo-
gy and to validate FLUENT for this
class of problem, the CFD results
were compared to an experimen-
tal data set from a 7.62mm NATO
G3 rifle1. A series of experimental
shadowgraph images acquired
from test firings of the G3 were used.
Early calculations using the
coupled explicit solver in FLUENT
6.0 accomplished the dynamic adap-
tion by means of text user inter-
face (TUI) commands that were
executed at regular time intervals
using the Execute Command func-
tionality. FLUENTs adaption rou-
tines were written primarily for steady
flow fields, so this comprised a new
application. For each adaption, the
refinement was unproblematic
and could be done in a single step.
By contrast, the coarsening had to
be done in several steps in order
to keep the number of marked cells
low. In addition, maintaining sta-
bility while solving the second
order flow equations was difficult.
Nonetheless, the results were
promising, with FLUENTs shock
structures matching the shadow-
graph very closely.
references:
1 Gnter Klingenberg and Joseph M.
Heimerl. Gun Muzzle Blast and
Flash. Volume 139, Progress in
Astronautics and Aeronautics.
American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astronautics: Washington, D.C.,
pp. 134-148 (1992).
2 ibid. Copyright 1992 by the
American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astronautics, Inc. Reprinted with
permission.
defense
aerospace industry
FLUENT 6.1
n contrast to the creative but cum-
I bersome approach of using
FLUENTs Execute Command
functionality for dynamic solution-
based adaption, FLUENT 6.1 pro-
vides an easy to use dynamic
adaption capability for transient, as
well as steady state computations.
In addition to the derivatives
FLUENT 6.0 uses to control the adap- Contours of density at 350 microseconds before the
tion, FLUENT 6.1 provides scaled shot exit (compare with the top figure from the
and normalized derivatives (gradient previous article)
and curvature) that do not require
the user to readjust the adaption
parameter during the computation.
Recent simulations have made
use of the new dynamic adaption
capability. Benet Laboratories has
kindly provided the geometry and
flow conditions, and this challenging
case will become part of the test
matrix used to validate future ver-
sions of FLUENT 6. Density contours
at 350s are in very good accor-
dance with the experimental results
from the previous article. The res-
olution of the shocks has improved,
because a higher level of refinement Grid colored by cell refine level (100,000 cells) at an
can now be used. Finally a sober-
intermediate time
ing statistic on the efficiency of
dynamic adaption: if the entire
domain (a rectangle of 7,000 by
3,500mm) were resolved to the same
level as the resolution of the shock
in the present example, about 133
million cells would be required. Given
the 135,000 cells used for the adapt-
ed case, the cell count is better by
a factor of 1,072!
Grid colored by cell refine level (135,000 cells, with a
maximum adaption level of seven) shortly before the
shot exit
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 S11
 fuel injectors

High Performance
aerospace industry

Fuel Injector Design

By Philip Buelow and Steven Smith, Turbine Fuel Technologies, Goodrich Corporation, West Des Moines, IA

Turbine Fuel Technologies proprietary soft-

120-degree cut-out of a simplex
atomizer showing the liquid fuel
(red) and the air (blue); flow is
from left to right
120-degree cut-out of a pure-airblast
atomizer showing the liquid fuel (red)
and the air (blue); flow is from left to
right
ware to estimate film break-up lengths and
droplet Sauter Mean Diameters (SMDs).
In contrast to simplex atomizers, which
utilize high-pressure in the fuel circuit to drive
the atomization process, pure-airblast atom-
izers use relatively low-pressure fuel along with
high velocity air adjacent to the fuel film
to drive the atomization process. A recent
FLUENT simulation modeled a pure-airblast
atomizer under liquid-only operation (i.e. no
driving air-pressure) so that a distinct coni-
cal fuel film could be observed. The CFD results
were compared with an experimentally
determined cone angle, and yielded reason-
able agreement, with the cone angle under-
predicted by only 5.5%. Further results on the
pure-airblast simulations can be found in
Reference 1.

ffective design of high-performance fuel a reduced propensity to form deposits. Time Reference

E injectors for aircraft and power-gen-

eration gas turbine engines requires
a clear understanding of both the aerody-
namic and hydraulic flow fields of the injec-
tor. At Goodrich Corporations Turbine Fuel
Technologies, FLUENT has been used exten-
sively for this purpose.
Injector life and engine performance can
be severely limited by the formation of car-
bonaceous deposits within the fuel circuits
and/or on the face of the injector. These deposits
can take the form of varnishes, gums, or soft
or hard carbon, and always form from the fuel.
On internal liquid fuel passageways, they tend
to form if the wetted wall temperatures exceed
certain values. Carbon deposits on the face
of the injector are typically due to inadequate
aerodynamic wiping of the face by compressor
discharge air.
CFD simulations using FLUENT have
become the mainstay at Turbine Fuel
Technologies for predicting the likelihood
that a nozzle will form carbon deposits.
Predictions of heat transfer coefficient
have been used effectively to estimate the
wetted wall temperatures within the liquid
fuel circuits in order to design injectors with
and again, FLUENT has proved to be an invalu-
able tool for predicting the presence of flow
field features that are historically related to
1 Buelow, P.E.O., Mao, C-P., Smith, S., Bretz, D.,
Application of Two-Phase CFD Analysis to a
Prefilming Pure-Airblast Atomizer, AIAA Paper
2001-3938, July 2001.
carbon formation, and for guiding design
changes to prevent it from happening.
One of the primary functions of a fuel injec-
tor is to atomize the fuel into very small droplets
so that it can adequately mix with air for the
combustion process. Recently, Turbine Fuel
Technologies has used FLUENTs VOF model
to simulate the formation of the thin liquid
fuel film1, which is a precursor to atomization.
In the simplex atomizer, the fuel enters
the spin chamber through angled spin-slots,
which impart a strong swirling motion to the
flow. As the flow exits the atomizer through
the orifice, it spreads out into a conical sheet.
A key characteristic of such flows is the for-
mation of an air core along the centerline
of the atomizer. This air-core typically
extends all the way to the back end of the
spin chamber, and is correctly captured by
the FLUENT simulation. Other key charac-
teristics are the film thickness, film velocities, Comparison of cone angle between experiment
(128) and CFD (121) for a pure air-blast
and the angle of the conical sheet exiting atomizer operating at a mass flowrate of
the atomizer. These parameters can be taken 0.0139 kg/sec (110 lbm/hr)
from the FLUENT simulation and input into

S12 Fluent NEWS fall 2002


Compact brazed heat exchangers
he Compact Brazed Heat
T Exchanger (CBE) is one of the most
efficient ways to transfer heat from
one medium to another. CBEs can be
used in many different applications for
both heating and cooling. They are rou-
tinely used in supermarket refrigera-
tion units, air-conditioners, and
domestic tap water heaters. A CBE con-
sists of many corrugated plates com-
bined to create complex channels
through which a hot fluid and a cold
one can be distributed. Without ever
mixing, the fluids come into close prox-
imity inside the CBE, and heat is trans-
ferred from one to the other as they
flow side-by-side.
CFD is a powerful tool for improv-
ing the heat transfer efficiency of a CBE
because it allows the flow in the CBE
channels to be simulated in three
dimensions. The design of the CBE must
offer both mechanical strength and
high thermal performance, so it is
important to be able to simulate new
patterns and geometries quickly and
efficiently. CFD readily allows this to
be done. Predictions can be validat-
ed experimentally, giving engineers
a high level of confidence in them.
SWEP is the worlds leading man-
ufacturer of CBEs, and has been
using CFD since 1997. FLUENT was cho-
sen because of its ability to import
geometries from 3D CAD packages.
The automatic tetrahedral meshing
feature was also important. At that time,
only a small region of the heat
exchanger could be simulated - the
region between four braze points, cor-
equipment manufacturers
High Performance
Compact
Heat Exchangers
By Olivier Pelletier, Manager of Heat Transfer Research, and Fredrik Strmer, CFD Engineer,
SWEP International AB, Sweden
responding to an area of about
50mm2 and periodic boundary
conditions were frequently used. With
improvements in the software and speed
increases in affordable computer sys-
tems, it became possible to simulate
entire channels. During the past five
years, the size and complexity of our
models have increased, yet the time
spent on meshing and solving them
has been drastically reduced.
Simulations using FLUENT have been
very important in the development of
new, improved CBEs that offer better
heat transfer and shorter time-to-mar-
ket. The ongoing effort with CFD has
also had an organizational impact. A CBE channel with tetrahedral cells
closer cooperation has evolved between
the Design and the Heat Transfer
Research departments, who share the
common goal of making better use
of the simulation possibilities. The design
department uses Mechanical Desktop
5.0, which generates ACIS-based
geometries that are easily meshed by
GAMBIT. The heat transfer research
department uses FLUENT 6.0 to gen-
erate a solution that gives information
about the flow, which is then used to
improve the design. The design engi-
neers make modifications and the
process repeats itself. There are still lim-
itations in the development process,
however. For example, it is still not prac-
tical to simulate the entire CBE, Pathlines in the CBE channel colored by velocity
which consists of many parallel chan-
nels, ports and connections. Yet with
the speed of computers continuing to
rise, even this prospect will soon become
possible.
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 23
power generation
Surface grid for the down-fired combustor

Who ya gonna call? hroughout the power generation industry, controlling the

T emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx) has been of interest

NOx
for many years. During this time, equipment such as low-
NOx burners, and combustion modification methods like reburn-
ing, air staging, and flue-gas recirculation have been
developed. Reburning is a process in which fuel not burned
in the primary combustion zone is diverted to a secondary com-
bustion zone downstream of the first, where it is reburned using
additional fuel. The hydrocarbons in the reburn zone react with
and eliminate some of the NOx created in the primary com-

BUSTERS
By Vlad Zarnescu, Columbian Chemicals Company, Marietta, GA;
and Sarma V. Pisupati, Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering
Department, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
port 1
port 2
port 3
port 4
port 5
Mixing optimization by varying the injection site for the reburn fuel
Comparison between experimental values (red circles) and FLUENT
predictions (blue lines) for axial temperature (top) and NOx
(bottom) profiles for the baseline case
bustion zone. Air staging, also called overfire air technology,
is a process that divides the combustion air into primary and
secondary streams. NOx generated by the fuel-rich conditions
of the fuel and primary air mixture are reduced in the com-
bustion zone that incorporates the secondary air. Flue gas recir-
culation involves the injection of some of the flue gas into the
combustion zone for further burning. This process results in
reduced flame temperatures, and subsequent reductions in NOx
production. To meet current emissions standards, several of
these methods have been coupled recently with the use of non-
conventional fuels, such as coal-water slurries and biomass, in
hopes of finding NOx reduction solutions that can be applied
to a large variety of boilers.
Researchers at Penn State University have been using
FLUENT to optimize the design of a pilot-scale combustor that
uses a number of NOx control methods, including a low-NOx
burner, air staging, and reburning. The facility is a 147 kW down-
fired combustor for which extensive experimental data has been
collected. CFD simulations of the unit have made use of FLUENTs
NOx module with the reburn option to evaluate the performance
of several optimized designs. A baseline mode of operation was
established with 0% reburn fuel and pulverized coal as the pri-
mary fuel. The mesh and boundary conditions in the numer-
ical model were adjusted to best match the experiments carried
out for this mode. Once these tests were completed, the mod-
eling of optimized scenarios, including different fuels and fir-
ing configurations, was initiated.
Several combustor designs and operating conditions were
considered. The effects of mixing, residence time, air staging,
and reburning were studied. The performance of natural gas,
coal, coal-water slurry, and biomass as reburn fuels was pre-
dicted using numerical simulations and compared with meas-
urements. Reduction of NOx levels was targeted at every stage,
with the results being coupled with optimized parameters for
mixing and injection configurations. A sensitivity analysis was
conducted to estimate the variations of the predictions with
respect to the model parameters.
The CFD results showed that improved mixing and burn-
er aerodynamics contribute significantly to lowering the pri-
mary-zone NOx levels. This fact, coupled with optimized injection
configurations and reburning parameters, resulted in impor-
tant reductions in NOx emissions. In a comparison of fuels,
tests indicated a NOx reduction of up to 74% over the base-
line case for natural gas reburning and 48% for coal-water slur-
ry reburning. These both represent a major improvement over
the maximum reduction obtained previously on the same unit
for non-optimized configurations. In short, the CFD-optimized
combustor design resulted in significant reduction of NOx emis-
sions, and at the same time provided insight into the NOx con-
trol mechanism and the complex interaction between key
combustor operating parameters.

24 Fluent NEWS fall 2002


Trapped Vortex Combustor
A (TVC) is an advanced concept
for gas turbine engines. In a
TVC, the flame is stabilized by a vor-
tex in a cavity adjacent to the main
air stream. While the TVC is still under
development at research facilities
such as the U.S. Department of
Energys National Energy Technology
Laboratory (NETL), it promises more
stable, compact, fuel-flexible flames
with lower emissions than conven-
tional combustors.
The trapped vortex that is used
to stabilize the flame is also the site
where the fuel and secondary air are
injected. Since there is not enough
oxygen to completely oxidize the fuel
in this region, a significant amount
of the fuel is reformed into H2 and
CO. The main air-stream, oriented
along the axis of the combustor, oxi-
dizes the reformed fuel under lean con-
ditions. In fact, the total amount of
air injected into the combustor can
be up to 250% of the theoretical
amount required to completely oxi-
dize the fuel. Lean flame conditions
such as this produce low emissions.
When simulating a TVC, the burn-
ing of the reformed fuels, especial-
ly the CO, is difficult to capture with
conventional combustion models.
Because the CO burns slowly, it is
never in a state of chemical equi-
librium, so the non-premixed PDF/
mixture fraction model, which is based
on an equilibrium assumption, is not
adequate. The eddy dissipation
model also fails because it does not
incorporate real chemistry the rate
of combustion is determined instead
by the rate at which turbulence can
mix fuel and oxidizer into the com-
bustion zone, where the chemistry
power generation
Trapped Vortex
Combustors
Show Promise
By Graham Goldin and Jens Madsen, Fluent Inc.; and
Bill Rogers and Douglas Straub, NETL, Morgantown, WV
is considered to occur rapidly. Pathlines colored by
Kinetically controlled species such as
CO and NOx are best modeled using
a finite rate formulation, but there
mass fraction of CO
is a major obstacle in using a finite-
rate chemistry model that incorpo-
rates dozens of species and hundreds
of reactions in multi-dimensional CFD
simulations. The obstacle is that the
chemical mechanisms are invariably
stiff, with reaction time scales that
can span several orders of magnitude.
To solve chemical systems of this type,
enormous amounts of CPU time are
required.
Three combustion models are avail-
able in FLUENT that can capture finite- Contours of
rate chemical kinetics for problems temperature on a
slice through the
with comprehensive chemical mech- combustor
anisms. These are the laminar-
flamelet, eddy-dissipation concept
(EDC), and PDF transport models.
These models can work with an algo-
rithm, new in FLUENT 6.1, called ISAT
(In-Situ Adaptive Tabulation)1, which
speeds up the chemistry integration
by two to three orders of magnitude,
making realistic finite-rate chemistry
calculations feasible.
The NETL TVC has been simulated
with all three models using a 23
species, 104 step chemical mecha-
nism. Exhaust temperature, CO, and Fluent Sponsors
NOx have been measured for nat-
ural gas fuel operating at a high pres- Sapporo
sure of 10 atmospheres, and during
the next phase of the project, Conference
detailed comparisons of the CFD results
with data will be made. Fluent was an official sponsor for the 6th International Workshop on
Measurement and Computation of Turbulent Nonpremixed Flames (TNF6),
which took place in Sapporo, Japan in July 2002. This prestigious event
1 Pope, S.B., Computationally Efficient
Implementation of Combustion brought together thought leaders in the area of combustion from around
Chemistry Using In-Situ Adaptive the world. Among the posters presented was one by Stephen B. Pope
Tabulation Combustion Theory and
Modeling, 1, pp. 41-63, (1997). and Graham M. Goldin entitled Composition PDF Calculations of Piloted-
Jet Non-Premixed Turbulent Flames.
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 25
power generation
Nuclear Reactor
Accident Simulator
By Grant L. Hawkes, Keith G. Condie, and Joy L. Rempe, Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), Idaho Falls, ID; and Eugen Nisipeanu, Fluent Inc.
he Idaho National Engineering and
T Environmental Laboratory (INEEL)
has been using FIDAP to investi-
gate cooling requirements for exper-
iments to simulate decay heat in
corium (e.g. fuel, metallic cladding, and
metallic structural materials) that may
relocate to the lower plenum of a reac-
tor vessel during a severe accident.
The thermal analysis models spe-
cialized heaters to simulate the effects
of decay heat in the molten corium,
Voltage contours and direct electrical heating (DEH) of
for the two-
electrode model the corium is one way to meet the heat
with a 10mm requirements. In some test configu-
crust rations, the outside of the vessel wall
is cooled, and this leads to the formation
of a solidified corium crust adjacent to
the wall on the inside. Since the crust
acts as an electrical insulator, it prevents
Joule heating from taking place in the
vessel wall.
Heat transfer calculations in FIDAP
simulated DEH in a crucible of molten
corium using a computed electric field
as the heat source. The thermal and
Current flux electrical conductivities in the corium
contours for the
two-electrode are strong functions of temperature. Two
model with a sets of 3D steady-state simulations were
10mm crust performed along with one set of 2D
transient simulations. In the steady-state
runs, crusts of varying thicknesses were
included in the models. In the transient
runs, a crust was allowed to form using
the phase change capability in FIDAP.
The corium composition used in the
simulations was similar to the materi-
al that relocated during the Three Mile
Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) accident in 1979.
The results showed that DEH of the
corium is an appropriate method to
Cut-away view of use, provided that sufficient cooling exists
voltage contours
on the outside of the vessel. The sim-
for the multiple
electrode model ulations also illustrated how the thick-
26 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
ness of the crust that results from exter-
nal cooling impacts the voltage and
current requirements. Bounding cases
were performed to determine the spec-
ifications for a power supply that can
deliver the maximum voltage and max-
imum current needed for the range of
conditions studied. The maximum cur-
rent that would be needed to gener-
ate the required heating power was
found to occur when there is no crust,
and the corium temperature is around
3300K. The maximum voltage that
would be needed was found to be for
the lowest corium temperature and the
thickest crust, because of the increased
total resistance between the electrodes.
A 24-electrode model was found to be
superior to a 2-electrode model for pro-
ducing uniform heating. The multiple
electrode configuration would be less
expensive to build, because it requires
less current per electrode to produce
the same heating power, and there-
fore requires smaller leads. The mul-
tiple electrode simulations indicated that
three-phase power would offer no advan-
tage over a single-phase source.
Transient calculations were performed
to gain insights about what type of
power supply controller would be need-
ed to regulate the voltage to the heaters
for these tests. These calculations also
showed that if the vessel is under-cooled
while a constant voltage is applied, the
corium will eventually melt the vessel
wall. The FIDAP simulations determined
that to deliver a constant power of 55kW,
the voltage requirements are from +/-
1.2V to +/-10.78V depending on the
temperature of the corium and the crust
thickness. The corresponding current
range is from 2,551 to 22,900
Amperes.
 lighting

avendish Instruments Ltd.

C (www.cavendishinstruments.com),
a Fluent business partner, is developing
a general purpose plasma modeling environ-
ment that is fully coupled to FLUENT 6. The
plasma components are derived from codes
developed at Sheffield University to describe
low and high pressure atomic and molecular
gas discharges, which are used as radiation sources
in general lighting or other more specialized
applications. The governing equations used in
these codes are of a fundamental and gener-
al nature, and when coupled to FLUENT 6, they
3D grid for plasma
create a powerful and novel 3D, time-depend- modeling of the low-
ent plasma modeling capability. Electric potential pressure discharge in
In the new code, the number density, momen- in the U-lamp the U-lamp
tum, and energy equations for both electrons
and ions are implemented through user-defined
scalars (UDS) and species transport equations
are used to describe the ground and excited
states of neutral atoms. For systems where radi-
ation transport processes are important, the
discrete ordinates method is being used, at least
initially. The code is being validated using a plas-
ma system for which there is reliable model-
Lighting Up
Plasma
ing data and where there is an extensive program
of experimental diagnostics in progress at Sheffield
University.
In separate work, Cavendish Instruments has
coupled FLUENT to a powerful chemical species
database called MTDATA (from the National
Physics Laboratory, Teddington, UK) to create

Lamps
Ehecatl, a code that has been used very suc-
cessfully by companies and research groups to
simulate complex bulk and surface chemistry
in thermal systems such as CVD coaters and
halogen lamps. In the future, Cavendish plans
to couple Ehecatl with their new plasma code.
The plasma code is also being used in a pro- By Alexander Palov, Arturo Keer, and Robin Devonshire, Cavendish Instruments Ltd.,
gram to develop novel plasma - electric circuit Sheffield, UK
models to help identify optimum system con-
figurations.
A critical issue in the simulation of any plas-
ma system is the availability of data for the elec-
tron-, photon- and ionatom/molecule collision
cross-sections, transition probabilities, and vol-
ume and surface chemical reaction rates.
Cavendish Instruments is taking a very broad
and long-term approach to this issue by com-
bining assessed published data with data esti-
mation methods and direct data calculation using
advanced ab initio methods (derived from the
Schrdinger equation and fundamental constants),
available either in-house or via collaboration
with world leading academic groups.
The plasma code is being developed in col-
laboration with several end-user companies. Other A DC ultra high performance (UHP) lamp Electric potential of an operating DC UHP lamp
users interested in simulating their plasma process-
es are actively being sought to help expand
the scope and validation of this software.

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 27

environmental

ngineers at Fluent Italy recently worked as external consultants in a court-

E room trial. At issue was the cause of a building fire in Milan, Italy that
claimed three lives and injured several others. The fire set off an explo-
sion in the apartment where it originated, causing the collapse of some of
the inner partition walls, floor slabs, and outer walls.
A poorly functioning distribution nozzle (burner) for the gas stove in the
small kitchen, that was using a mixture of propane and butane fuel, was sus-
pected to be the main cause of the event. The diffusion of fuel vapors into
the flats rooms may have caused, after a few hours of leakage, at certain loca-
tions, the lower flammability limit (LFL) to be exceeded. In these locations, a
necessary (but hypothetical) ignition source could have easily set off the explo-
sion. The legal action, which involved the insurance company and the build-
ing construction firm, is still pending. The work performed by Fluent was done The building after the explosion shows the
with the full support of the lawyers and technical experts from both sides. full extent of the damage

Judgement Day
for CFD Technology
By Emanuela Colombo, Ph.D., Energy Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy; and Diego Donati and Marco Rossi, Fluent Italy

All the model details, including boundary conditions for the gas nozzle,
properties of the gaseous vapors, and indoor and outdoor temperatures were
reviewed with the lawyers from both sides prior to the start of the project.
The unsteady simulation was run using a 3D model of the apartment, which
Bedroom covered roughly 90 m2. A small vent (100 cm2) in the kitchen, required by
Italian law for exhausting flue gases, was modeled in both the open and closed
position, to test its efficacy.
Living Meshes of approximately 350,000 cells, most of which were hexahedral,
Room were used for the simulations. The fuel vapors were assigned a concentration
of 40% propane and 60% butane. Transport equations were solved for these
Small components as well as for oxygen and nitrogen. Flammability limits for this
Kitchen composition were calculated according to Le Chateliers formulation, and found
to be in the range of 0.02 - 0.09. To ensure the development of the proper
natural convection currents at the time, two service volumes were used out-
The FLUENT model consisted of the entire apartment and two side the apartment windows to simulate the external atmosphere of the win-
separate volumes of outside cold air adjacent to the walls
ter day when the accident occurred.
containing windows. The small kitchen contained a simplified
stove and wall vent, used for exhaust fumes. The simulation results for the case of a closed kitchen vent and gas flow
rate of 0.070 kg/hr indicated that the fuel and oxygen mixture was below the
LFL everywhere except in the area close to the gas inlet. With the vent open,
two counterproductive effects were observed. First, fresh air was drawn into
the room. Second, the cold outside air set up local circulation currents that
impeded the diffusion of gas vapors throughout the remainder of the apart-
ment. This caused a higher concentration of vapors to be found in the kitchen
than in the scenario with the vent closed. While each scenario predicted small
regions where the vapors were in excess of the LFL, neither was considered
to present the kind of conditions that would lead to an explosion of the mag-
nitude that occurred.
It was concluded that the results were strongly dependent on the defined
scenario given by the parties, according to which the simulation was based.
The actual conditions, such as the indoor and outdoor temperatures and degree
of closure of the vent, may have been different enough to alter the driving
forces behind the air and gas flows. Indeed, small differences might have been
A few iso-surfaces of fuel vapor, colored by temperature, enough to give rise to a different explosion mixture which, given the oppor-
throughout the apartment
tunity to ignite, could have generated the damage that occurred.

28 Fluent NEWS fall 2002


Taking the Heat Out
of the Clinton Museum
By Daniel Nall, PE, AIA and Michael Eskra, Flack and Kurtz Inc., New York, NY
he William Jefferson Clinton
T Presidential Center is located on
the south bank of the Arkansas
River just east of downtown Little Rock,
Arkansas. The main feature of the cen-
ter is the Bridge Building. This build-
ing houses the Presidential Museum,
which is a public exhibition gallery
and museum space. Nearby is the
Archive Building, which contains the
National Archive and Records
Administration Facilities including
storage vaults and office space for
researchers.
The museum space that is housed
in the Bridge Building occupies a dra-
matic, double-height space that con-
tains exhibits chronicling the tenure
of the former President. The lower
level consists of a series of perma-
nent interactive exhibits. The upper
level is open to the lower level in the
middle with more exhibits around
the perimeter of the space. The west
wall of the space is a full-height glass
wall, while the east wall is opaque.
Since many of the exhibits have
large cooling loads due to special-
ty lighting and interactive display
equipment, the design objective for
the space was to create a stratified
layer of air with conditions in the
human thermal comfort range in the
lower level. The heat would then
rise through the middle of the upper
level to a return at the ceiling. To
accomplish this, several different meth-
ods of conditioning the space were
utilized. On the lower level, dis-
placement air distribution was pro-
vided using linear slot diffusers
along the west perimeter and in front
of the exhibits on the east and west
sides. This air was supplied in the occu-
pied areas at design conditions while
unoccupied areas along the perime-
HVAC
ter were supplied at 55F. On the
upper level it was not possible to use
underfloor distribution due to the struc-
ture of the second floor, so overhead
air supplies were used. This air was
supplied at 55F from jet diffusers locat-
ed over the open area. On both lev-
els, a radiant floor was used to create
a warm thermal mass in the winter
and to help to absorb the space solar
load in the summer.
Since so many different systems
were being used to condition the
space, simulations in Airpak were per-
formed by Flack and Kurtz to study
the interaction of the various systems.
Flack and Kurtz has successfully engi-
neered and implemented many
advanced green construction tech-
nologies in a variety of applications,
using capabilities that include com-
putational fluid dynamics, advanced
energy modeling, and lighting
analysis.
The simulation results showed that
during the summer months, the space
The geometry of the interior of the exhibit space
could be maintained at the desired
thermal conditions. The displacement
distribution created a layer of cool-
er air that fills the occupied area and
forces the warmer air to rise up the
middle. The upper-level overhead sup-
ply flow pushes across the catwalks
and picks up heat given off by the
exhibits before rising along the exhib-
it walls and circulating back to the
return vents. Throughout the entire
space, the air flow is assisted by the
contributions of the radiant floor sys-
tem. The CFD analysis was used to
determine the optimum operating
conditions for the air flow systems
during regular occupancy, and to ver-
ify the ventilation effectiveness in sup-
port of a LEED (Leadership in Energy
& Environmental Design) credit. Temperature contours on a slice through both levels
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 29
glass and fibers
Drawing
Optical Fibers
By Denis Tschumperl, Alcatel, Conflans, France
he manufacture of optical fiber
T requires a series of successive
steps. At Alcatel, the process
begins by creating a preform of doped
silica using MCVD (Modified
Chemical Vapor Deposition). A sil-
Preform feed ica overclad is then deposited onto
the preform using a plasma torch.
This massive silica preform is then
Preform
drawn into a 125 micron diameter
fiber. For this to occur, the preform
Furnace
is heated up to the silica softening
point in a drawing furnace, and then
Laser micrometer drawn into a fiber. After the fiber is
cooled, it is passed through UV fur-
Coating cup 1
naces, where it is coated with one
or more polymers to give it addi-
UV curing oven 1 tional strength. Throughout the entire
process, the control of temperature
and gas composition is crucial to meet
Coating cup 2 quality requirements.
FLUENT has been used at Alcatel
to simulate several of the steps in
UV curing oven 2 the process. The first simulation per-
formed was of the simple case of a
fiber cooling in air1. After validating
Take-up these results, engineers were able
to predict the temperature of the
fiber as it travels through air at dif-
Schematic of the fiber drawing process
ferent temperatures and draw
speeds.
FLUENT has also been used to
simulate the drawing furnace,
where the temperature pattern, gas
flow, and gas composition must be
fiber
Comparison of computed (blue line) and experimental (red
circles) temperature in the centerline of the drawing furnace
30 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
controlled to avoid any degradation
of the internal walls of the furnace
or of the preform. Because very few
measurements can be made in this
harsh environment, simulation is
essential to better understand the
influence of these parameters on the
fiber product quality. The furnace
models include fluid flow and
radiative heat transfer. Using the dis-
crete ordinates model, the silica pre-
form is treated as a semi-transparent
medium, and the radiation spectrum
is divided into several bands. The
model predictions of temperature
on the furnace centerline have been
successfully validated against ther-
mocouple measurements. In fact, the
computed temperatures are believed
to be more representative of reality
than the measured values, due to
the radiative effect of the furnace
on the metallic thermocouples.
Modifications to the process are
continually being evaluated for
ways to improve it, and FLUENT has
been used to assess and optimize
these new designs. For example, if
the draw speed is increased while
the height of the draw tower
(where the heating, drawing, cool-
ing, and coating processes take place)
remains constant, the fiber must be
cooled more efficiently. One method
for doing this is to direct cooling jets
gas flow
Pathlines colored by temperature in the cooling device
of gas onto the fiber2. The position
of these jets on the draw tower strong-
ly influences the fiber temperature,
and depending on the jet positions,
radiation may or may not play a role
in the process. Experience has
shown that the temperature depend-
ence of the material properties, for
both the fiber and cooling gas, can
greatly influence the computed
temperatures, so this must be care-
fully taken into account. It has also
been determined that the turbulent
flow with very different characteristics
near the fiber and out in the free
stream is best modeled using the
two layer zonal treatment. With the
many modeling choices available,
Alcatel engineers feel that FLUENT
can help them identify the best sce-
narios for improving this complex
process.
References
1 D. Tschumperle, M. Nicolardot, Fiber
Cooling Modelization During Draw
Using CFD, ASME PVP Vol. 424-1,
Volume 1, 2001.
2 D. Tschumperle, J.F. Bourhis,
S. Dubois, A. Leon, Study of Cooling
Tubes for Fiber Draw Using CFD,
Proceedings of 50th IWCS, Lake
Buena Vista, Florida, November
12-15, 2001.
 glass and fibers

Pressure contours in
a foam extrusion die

FD is playing an important role in the devel-

C opment of environmentally friendly building insu-

lation products at Owens Corning, the worlds
leading insulation manufacturer. A decade ago, insula-
tion manufacturers moved away from chlorofluorocar-
bon (CFC) foaming agents because of the damage they
can cause to the earths ozone layer. The CFCs have been

Ozone-
replaced largely by hydrochloroflurocarbon (HCFC) blow-
ing agents. While the ozone depletion potential of HCFCs
is considerably less than that of CFCs, it is not zero and
efforts are underway to find a replacement for HCFCs.
The challenge in developing new foaming agents is to
maintain the thermal and mechanical properties of the
foam while keeping the manufacturing process economically

Friendly
viable. Today, insulation manufacturers are rapidly mov-
ing to foaming agents such as hydrocarbons or carbon
dioxide because removing chlorine from the foaming
compound completely eliminates ozone damage.
Polystyrene foam is one type of insulation that is pro-
duced by saturating a polymer with a blowing agent
at high pressures and temperatures by means of an extru-
sion system. At the extrusion die a rapid pressure drop
occurs, the solubility of the blowing agent in the poly-
mer melt is rapidly decreased, and the melt becomes
supersaturated. A large number of cells are nucleated
as the melt exits from the die. As the melt cools, the
blowing agent diffuses into these small cells, expand-
ing their size until the final product dimensions are achieved.
Insulation
By Dr. Manoj Choudhary, Senior Technical Staff, Owens Corning, Granville, OH

A major challenge in the manufacturing process is

to ensure that temperature, velocity, and pressure remain
relatively constant along the cross-section of the die to
maintain product uniformity. The traditional approach
to evaluating the performance of alternate foaming agents
is to perform experiments with dies. More recently, how-
ever, Owens Corning researchers have turned to POLYFLOW
to simulate the process. Their model includes the com-
plicated rheology of the polymer materials in their full
complexity.
One of the benefits of using POLYFLOW is that it can
incrementally and automatically change the material prop-
erties or system boundary conditions to obtain solutions
at intermediate steps during a solution procedure. To
simplify the simulation, the material mix, which is com-
prised of the polymer and blowing agent, was treated
as a single homogenous melt rather than as two sep-
arate species. Test data were combined with published
information to determine the complex system param-
eters for the model. With the aid of manufacturing engi-
neers and the Fluent technical support staff, the Owens
Corning researchers were able to improve the efficien-
cy of the calculation process, reducing convergence time
to about 24 hours per test case.
The ability to accurately simulate the foam extrusion
process will dramatically speed up the process of eval-
uating and optimizing new foaming agents in the future.
Instead of having to run a complicated series of phys-
ical tests, engineers will be able to simulate the foam-
ing operation on the computer in a fraction of the time.
One big advantage of CFD is that researchers can obtain
critical flow, pressure, and temperature parameters at
any point inside the die. This information will help deter-
mine the reasons for the good or poor performance of
a particular die and material combination, which in turn
will provide guidance for improving the design. The end
result is that researchers will be able to evaluate far more
potential foaming agents under a much wider range
of conditions, thus increasing the efficiency of the devel-
opmental process. This should also make it possible to
substantially increase the yield of the material produced
with new foaming agents, resulting in reduced manu-
facturing costs.

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 31

academic news
FlowLab Enters the
Engineering Curriculum
By Richard D. LaRoche, University Program Manager
omputing technology has made a
C
Photo courtesy of Iowa
Institute Hydraulic Research,
University of Iowa large impact on many areas of engi-
neering education, yet it has been
slow to penetrate undergraduate fluid
mechanics and heat transfer courses,
which have been taught in much the same
way for over fifty years. General-purpose
CFD software has been successfully
deployed for both graduate and under-
graduate research projects, but the learn-
ing curve has made it difficult to integrate
these tools with the introductory engineering
curriculum. FlowLab (flowlab.fluent.com),
the CFD-based educational software pack-
age recently released from Fluent, attempts
to fill this void. FlowLab allows students
to solve fluid dynamics problems without
requiring a long training period. Its mission
is broader than just introducing CFD tech-
nology to undergraduates; it uses CFD to
excite students about fluid dynamics and
entice them to learn more about transport
phenomena of all kinds.
FlowLab provides students with a
Virtual Fluids Laboratory, in which CFD
is used to teach and visually reinforce con-
cepts in fluid flow and heat transfer. Using
carefully constructed examples, students are
introduced to the effective use of CFD for
32 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
solving fluid flow problems, and are
exposed to software tools that have
become increasingly important in industry.
FlowLab allows students to get started imme-
diately without having to spend the large
time commitment to learn geometry and
mesh creation skills required by tradition-
al CFD software. Teachers can create their
own examples or customize the pre-defined
ones, so that they tie directly into the course
curriculum.
The number and range of pre-defined
examples is growing. Fluent is working with
university professors worldwide to devel-
op a library of FlowLab exercises, which will
be available freely through the Internet.
Below are the overall educational goals for
the FlowLab framework:
To reinforce the basic concepts
of fluid mechanics and
heat/mass transfer using
computer simulation
To augment and complement
the existing laboratory-based
curriculum through the use of
computing exercises
To expand the learning
experience with real-world
applications of fluid flow and
heat/mass transfer
To expose students to CFD
concepts an increasingly
important skill in todays job
market
The Division of Undergraduate Education
of the National Science Foundation has
recently awarded a three-year grant to the
University of Iowa, Iowa State University,
Cornell University, and Howard University
for a collaborative project to integrate sim-
ulation technology into undergraduate edu-
cation. This multi-university project team,
headed by Prof. Fred Stern at the University
of Iowa, will develop teaching modules for
undergraduate fluid mechanics courses and
laboratories using CFD, experimental fluid
dynamics (EFD), and uncertainty analysis
(UA). The project team has partnered with
Fluent to use FlowLab for the CFD com-
ponent of these teaching modules.
Fluent is also working with the CACHE
Corporation (Computer Assisted Chemical
Engineering Education) to explore ways to
integrate CFD tools in the chemical engi-
neering curriculum. CACHE is a non-
profit organization whose purpose is to
promote cooperation among universities,
industry, and government in the develop-
ment and distribution of computer-relat-
ed educational aids for the chemical
engineering profession. CACHEs CFD
taskforce includes Prof. Jennifer Sinclair Curtis
of Purdue University, Prof. Rodney Fox of
Iowa State University, and Dr. Richard LaRoche
of Fluent.
FlowLab was chosen as the CFD
Workshop platform for the 2002 Summer
School for Chemical Engineering Faculty,
sponsored by the Chemical Engineering
Division of the American Society of
Engineering Education (ASEE). The purpose
of the Summer School is to disseminate inno-
vative and effective teaching methods to
a wide spectrum of chemical engineering
undergraduate programs. Prof. Jennifer
Sinclair Curtis led the CFD Workshop in which
chemical engineering faculty explored how
FlowLab can be deployed for undergrad-
uate fluid mechanics and heat transfer cours-
es. Fluent continues to work with Prof. Curtis
to refine FlowLab exercises and develop
instructor materials.
The University program at Fluent is eager
to collaborate with faculty members to devel-
op new ways to use CFD to enhance the
undergraduate engineering curriculum. It
is hoped that FlowLab exercises, one com-
ponent of this effort, will be developed,
peer-reviewed, and shared within the aca-
demic community. As a result of the pro-
grams currently underway, graduating
students will be better prepared to enter
the workforce in the years to come.

Fluent Holds First
Student Contest
luent recently held a North
F American Fluent Student Contest
in which students were invited
to submit a paper outlining their most
innovative use of Fluent software.
Nearly twenty papers were submit-
ted from undergraduate and grad-
uate students on topics that ranged
from ice drilling in Antarctica to the
microscopic flow through a packed
bed of spherical particles. Because
it was so difficult to pick a single win-
ner from the field of superb entries,
two were chosen. For the best appli-
cation, Dong-Hee Kim from West
Virginia University, Morgantown,
WV was the winner with her paper
entitled Prediction of Nucleation and
Coagulation Modes in the Formation
of Diesel Particulate Matter Using
Prestigious Award
for Fluent Italy Employee
Shear stress on
the aortic wall
FLUENT. For the best model imple-
mentation, Ugur Pasaogullari from
Pennsylvania State University,
University Park, PA was chosen
for his paper, Computational Fluid
Dynamics Modeling of Proton
Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells
Using FLUENT. The winners received
an expense-paid trip to the annual
Fluent Users Group Meeting in
Manchester, New Hampshire on
June 11-12, where they presented
their work.
Check out the Fluent University
website at university.fluent.com to
find the abstracts, papers, and
resumes of the students who entered
this years contest and agreed to post
their work. We hope to have even
more students participate in next years
academic news
Annual
Contours of CO2 emitted from a tractor-
trailer exhaust pipe (Courtesy of DH Kim)
contest, so check back in January for
details about the 2003 Student
Contest. The competition is an
excellent opportunity for all partic-
ipants to have their work and
resumes appear on our web site.
- R. LaRoche
ualtiero Guadagni, for- in Medicine in the UK. The paper,
G merly a Ph.D. student in
the Department of Bio-
engineering at the Politecnico di
entitled Fluid structure interaction
within realistic three-dimensional
models of the aneurysmatic aorta
Milano, Italy, and now an employ- as a guidance to assess the risk
ee at Fluent Italy, was one of the of rupture of the aneurysm, by
co-authors on a paper that recent- E. S. Di Martino, G. Guadagni,
ly won the Perkins Prize 2002 for A. Fumero, G. Ballerini, R. Spirito,
the best paper published in 2001 P. Biglioli, and A. Redaelli, described
in the journal Medical Engineering work done using FIDAP to study the
and Physics, a publication of the transient flow through an aortic
Institute of Physics and Engineering aneurysm during a cardiac cycle.
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 33
computing
Engineering Simulation
in the Next Decade
By Paul Bemis, Vice President of eBusiness
he concept of
T using simula-
tion early in
the product design
process is not new,
dating back to an ill-
fated attempt to
build an Analysis Workstation by the now defunct
Aries Corporation in the early 1980s. Widespread
use of simulation did not rapidly materialize, how-
ever, because of two main issues: the desktop
computer price/performance ratio was insuffi-
cient to address the task, and the simulation tools
of the day were so specialized and complex that
their use was limited to the advanced analyst.
With the dramatic improvement in computing
price/performance in recent years, combined with
advances in the ease of use of CFD software, it
is now feasible to consider deployment of CFD
in the early stages of the design cycle to users
with far less training than the CFD analysts of
the past. Relying on recent and anticipated advances
in software and hardware technology, this shift
will become much more widespread during the
next decade.
Recently, CAE software providers have begun
shipping a set of easy to use tools aimed at allow-
ing simulation to be used up front in the design
process. These highly-automated push-button
tools are positioned as the ultimate means of pro-
viding easily obtained feedback early in the devel-
opment cycle. However, these tools are being
met with some resistance in the market, primarily
because of concerns that personnel at this expe-
rience level would not be able to correctly inter-
pret the results. Moreover, when these new tools
are used in isolation, it circumvents the most impor-
tant element of product development: integra-
tion with existing simulation practices and processes
already in use within the company.
For many companies, the application of CFD
is well understood and methods of use already
34 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
exist, even though these best practices are not
necessarily well documented. One of the chal-
lenges associated with the introduction of design-
stage simulation products is making sure that
the established best practices are followed as the
new products are introduced. To meet this need,
these new tools must allow best practices to be
captured and incorporated into the software. In
addition, the output from this new tool must be
made readily available to advanced users so that
they can monitor the design process as it evolves,
eliminating data input redundancy.
Although the implementation of current best
practices into CFD applications is non-trivial, recent
improvements in software development tools have
made it easier to create graphical user interfaces
(GUIs) with imbedded logic to guide the user.
For example, the Internet Explorer web-
browser is included with every copy of Microsoft
Windows. This browser has continued to
enhance its functionality with such features as
active server pages and XML support. These tools
provide a basis for the rapid development of GUIs
that can be put to use in the engineering sim-
ulation process. For example, advanced users can
quickly and easily develop step-by-step sequences
that capture both the process of simulation and
the inherent application knowledge that exists
within the organization. Rather than being con-
strained to GUIs developed for the general mar-
ket, these users can create custom interfaces specific
to the problem at hand that can be easily tied
into the overall product engineering simulation
process. In this way, the right amount of simu-
lation can be delivered to the right people, at
the right time in the product design process, in
a highly integrated and efficient manner. And
advanced users can use these early virtual mod-
els to pursue more advanced simulation as the
product nears the final stages of development,
thus incorporating these early up front tools
into the overall work flow process.
 product news

Liquid volume fraction in a boiling

simulation in which a column of water
is exposed to a heat source at the
center of its base

Whats New in
FLUENT 6.1
By Nicole M. Diana, FLUENT Product Market Manager

he release of FLUENT 6.1 is now be used for transient as well as

T planned for the end of 2002. This

version is packed with many excit-
ing new features and capabilities in sev-
eral focus areas, such as multiphase
flow, dynamic mesh, rotating equip-
ment, reacting flow, and heat trans-
fer and phase change. The release is
the result of a planning, development,
and testing process in which specific
industrial applications are targeted for
each new feature release. Clients are
interviewed to identify requirements
and provide relevant test cases. The tar-
geted applications are subjected to a
matrix of industrial-strength test cases
and three levels of progressively sim-
pler cases. The industrial-strength
test cases must be passed in order for
the targeted functionality to be includ-
ed in a release. Target applications for
FLUENT 6.1 include: bubble column
reactors, fluidized bed reactors, packed
bed reactors, surface reactions in
CVD reactors, in-cylinder flows, store
separation and missile launch, turbo-
machinery, underhood flows, and
steady-state analysis, and particles can
interact with both moving and sliding
zones. A new spray/wall impingement
model has been implemented that allows
for tangential droplet motion that can
arise from spray-wall interaction.
dynamic mesh
Offered as a beta capability in
FLUENT 6.0, the dynamic mesh model
will be officially released in FLUENT 6.1,
with parallel functionality fully supported.
The novel approach used by this model
requires the user to specify only the
initial mesh and boundary conditions
for the moving wall(s). The solver auto-
matically generates all subsequent
changes in the mesh with each time
step, using one or more of three avail-
able algorithms. (See the article on page
5 for more details.)
Deposition of
gallium arsenide in
a vertical rotating
disc reactor
Courtesy of EMCORE Corp.

fuel injector pumps. Some of the high-

lights of the new functionality are pre-
sented below.

multiphase flow
The Eulerian multiphase model has
been extended to allow for heat and
mass transfer. Mass transfer can also
be included with VOF simulations. The
mixture model can now handle com-
pressibility in one phase, and several
standard drag laws have been added.
The discrete phase spray models can

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 35

product news

Contours of vapor volume fraction for a

2D hydrofoil with Cavitation Number 0.91

rotating equipment tation model that can handle highly cavitating

For turbomachinery and rotating equip-
ment simulations, a sliding mesh preview tool
has been provided to help determine if the
mesh is valid prior to launching a calculation.
A mass flow outlet is now available, and an
enthalpy conservation option has been
added to the mixing plane model. For mod-
eling real gases, a custom real gas model can
be specified through a user-defined function,
and a template for the Redlich-Kwong equa-
tion of state is also available. Turbomachinery-
specific post-processing tools have been
expanded to address multistage problems.
reacting flow
For simulations involving surface reactions,
site species and bulk species are now distin-
guished from one another, allowing for
multi-step surface reactions with deposition and
etching.
The porous media model has also been
enhanced to better handle chemically react-
ing flows, typical of packed bed reactors. The
actual physical (interstitial) velocities in porous
media are now computed in addition to the
superficial velocities, to better account for the
flows has been added that accurately predicts
the pressure profile, even for very high pres-
sure conditions. A new heat exchanger model
has also been implemented.
other enhancements
There are several solver-related enhance-
ments. A new gradient calculation scheme can
be selected that may result in more accurate
predictions on all meshes, but particularly on
unstructured meshes. Other new features include Comparison of computed (blue line) and experimental (red
fully automatic mesh refinement, the ability circles) pressure variation on the suction side of the 2D
hydrofoil shown above
to run DPM simulations on distributed mem-
ory systems, and the ability to read cases with
non-conformal and sliding interfaces directly
into the parallel solver without encapsulation.
The new detached eddy simulation (DES)
model, which uses LES in the core turbulent
region and RANS in the wall-dominated region,
is a practical alternative to LES simulations for
high Reynolds number external aerodynam-
ic flows, since it is able to capture the physics
in an affordable manner. The V2F model from
Cascade Technologies is now embedded and
View factor calculation time (min) for a typical automotive
available for an additional fee. This four-equa- underhood simulation illustrates the surface-to-surface
tion turbulence model is well-suited for low radiation model enhancements in FLUENT 6.1

effects of fluid acceleration. Chemical reactions Re number flows.

can be limited to individual zones and can be
disabled in certain zones, if desired. This is help-
ful for modeling a reactor that contains a cat-
alyst region. Surface reactions can also now
be specified on walls adjacent to porous zones.
Also new is the composition PDF transport
model, implemented through a collaboration
with Professor Stephen Pope of Cornell. It pro-
vides an accurate turbulence-chemistry inter-
Additional new features in FLUENT 6.1 include
the ability to couple the WAVE engine simula-
tion code with FLUENT, a built-in capability to
compute discrete Fourier transforms of time series
data, and the ability to automatically build com-
piled UDF libraries at the push of a button. In
addition to the UDF-based acoustics module that
Development
By Thierry Marchal, POLYFLOW Product Market Manager
was released in July, FLUENT 6.1 includes two
other UDF-based add-on modules: a magne-
OLYFLOW 3.9 was released in April 2002.

action model for real finite-rate chemistry in
turbulent flames.
heat transfer and phase change
A partial enclosure option has been added
to the surface-to-surface radiation model that
allows portions of the geometry that are not
important for the radiative exchange calculation
to be ignored. In addition, the view factor solver
has been upgraded to a new version of Chaparral.
These two improvements significantly reduce
the CPU and memory requirements for the
view-factor calculation. A new, robust cavi-
tohydrodynamics model and a continuous fiber
model. All three modules will be included on the
FLUENT 6.1 CDs. License keys will be needed
to access the magnetohydrodynamics and con-
tinuous fiber modules; contact your local Fluent
office for more details.
This is only a sampling of the capabilities
that will be delivered in FLUENT 6.1. For more
details, review the release notes that are post-
ed on the User Services Center. At Fluent, we
are all very excited about the expanding range
of applications that can be addressed with the
FLUENT 6 platform.
P
Since then, developers have been working
to implement numerous features for the next
version, POLYFLOW 3.10. Some of the key capa-
bilities to be included are enhancements to the
adaptive meshing routines, the ability to perform
fluid structure interaction (FSI) calculations, and
some preliminary optimization features. In addi-
tion, localized versions of POLYMAN will be intro-
duced. Available in English, French, and Japanese,
this new environment allows users to start
GAMBIT, POLYFLOW, and FIPOST in a Windows-
like environment.

36 Fluent NEWS fall 2002


FIDAP 8.7
Scheduled for
Fall 2002
Release
By Thierry Marchal, FIDAP Product Market Manager
ork on FIDAP 8.7 has recently been com-
W pleted, with a release currently sched-
uled for Fall 2002. In addition to major
solver enhancements, FIDAP 8.7 will include sev-
eral new models along with features that
improve its usability.
Among the new models is one that allows mass
transfer across a free surface. This means that evap-
oration from a liquid surface can now be simu-
lated. The initial implementation of this capability
makes use of a deforming mesh, where the flux
of material across the free surface is regulated by
a thermodynamic equilibrium between the two
materials. A new reduced order shell element
has also been implemented in FIDAP 8.7.
Designed to complete the range of applications
first addressed by the membrane element intro-
duced in FIDAP 8.6, useful for thin structures, the
new shell element has bending resistance, mak-
ing it more suitable for simulations involving fluid-
News for POLYFLOW 3.10
One important enhancement in the new ver-
sion will be the ability to specify a slippage between
the fluid and a driving wall, such as an impeller
or rotating screw. This feature should improve the
accuracy of results for twin-screw extruders, batch
mixers, and other equipment that is modeled using
the mesh superposition technique. Viscoelastic mod-
eling options will be more comprehensive in
POLYFLOW 3.10 with the addition of the discrete
elastic viscous stress splitting, or DEVSS1 formu-
lation, available through the graphical user
interface. This model complements the elastic vis-
cous stress splitting, or EVSS technique, which is
currently available.
Temperature distribution in an aluminum
extrusion, modeled using the FIDAP 8.7
P-coupled solver
Results visualized with FIELDVIEW
structure interaction.
In earlier versions of FIDAP, the database con-
tained all of the information for a given case, includ-
ing the mesh and problem parameters. In FIDAP
8.7, the user has the option of storing the mesh
information in a separate file, which means that
time will no longer be needed to store and retrieve
this information from the database. This option
will be very helpful for simulations that use large
meshes with hundreds of thousands (or more)
elements.
For problems involving slip elements or free
surface computation, a new method of defining
the normal and tangential directions has been
implemented in FIDAP 8.7. The computation of
normals on the faces of elements is performed
automatically, so that users no longer need to do
this manually at corners and edges.
A partially coupled solver has been introduced
in FIDAP 8.7 that offers an option that falls between
In response to user requests, POLYFLOW 3.10
will be fully compatible with LINUX RH7.1.
Preliminary tests report encouraging perform-
ance on this platform.
1 R. Gunette, M. Fortin,
A New Mixed Finite
Element Method for
Computing Viscoelastic
Flows, Journal of non-
Newtonian Fluid Mech.,
60 p.27-52 (1995).
product news
the fully coupled and segregated solvers. This
option allows the user to solve some degrees of
freedom (as selected by the user) in a coupled
fashion, while the other quantities are solved
in a segregated way. For certain applications (such
as low Reynolds number flows with non-
Newtonian viscosity), tests have demonstrated
that partial coupling of some quantities (such
as pressure and velocity) increases the conver-
gence rate. The degree of speed-up depends strong-
ly on the complexity of the physical models
involved.
Requests from users over the years to improve
the post-processing capabilities of FIDAP have led
to a partnership between Fluent and Intelligent
Light to bundle a special version of FIELDVIEW
with FIDAP (and POLYFLOW). This new bundling
brings dramatic improvements to the ability to
visualize solution results. FIPOST will continue to
be available as well.
The inverse
extrusion of a
foamed material,
computed using
POLYFLOW 3.9; the
color represents the
bubble radius
Results visualized
with FIELDVIEW
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 37
product news
Powerful
New Releases of
Icepak and
IcePro
By Rajesh Nair, Icepak Product Manager
A benchmark computer chassis
solution, computed using Icepak 4.0
cepak 4.0, the newest version of Fluents
I electronics cooling simulation software, was
released to users in June. This new version
of Icepak delivers the industrys fastest time-
to-solution through a combination of new tech-
nologies and a redesigned, time-saving
interface.
Several key features have been introduced
in Icepak 4.0. The new assembly meshing
capability delivers the power of FLUENTs long-
38 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
standing ability to solve problems on mesh-
es with non-conformal interfaces. This
allows geometric details to be included in
the model without imposing the penalty of
large cell counts. In some cases studied, the
mesh size can be reduced by 20 to 70%. This
decreases solution time, design time, and proj-
ect costs, allowing the designer to build an
accurate, yet computationally efficient model
faster than can be done with any other ther-
mal management software package on the
market today. A number of users have been
impressed with the new assembly meshing
capability. Dr. Sam Zhao, a senior engineer
with Broadcom, explains that non-conformal
meshing is especially desirable for large elec-
tronic system simulations where detailed ther-
mal models of devices are necessary for
improved accuracy in junction temperature
predictions.
The number of other enhancements
abound, and include a new interface that allows
the user to build and assemble models with
ease, a graphical tree that allows the user
to manage and organize projects, the abili-
ty to create custom libraries of different parts
and populate them using drag and drop
functionality, the inclusion of standard library
parts for fans and IC (integrated chip) pack-
ages, and new graphical alignment tools.
Advanced object wizards and macros are also
included that allow the user to build either
components or entire benchmark systems.
The ability to model heat exchangers or cold
plates using 1D networks has been introduced,
as has a modified IDF (Intermediate Data Format)
import capability that allows the user to cus-
tomize the import of detailed board level mod-
els. These features combine to deliver
unprecedented flexibility and power to the
electronics designer.
Along with the Icepak 4.0 release is the
Version 3.0 release of the Icepak to ProE direct
CAD interface, now called IcePro3.0. This prod-
uct contains features that significantly reduce
the time required to transfer a CAD model
from ProE to Icepak. For example, faster model
import is achieved in part through elimina-
tion of the surface abstraction process. In addi-
tion, any material information specified in the
ProE model is now imported into Icepak as
a custom material, with all property data includ-
ed in the transfer.

AMBIT 2.1, planned for an early 2003
G release, addresses many needs that have
been voiced by Fluent software users. Chief
among these was a need to make geometry import
and cleanup from CAD packages easier.
Several new features have been added to
GAMBIT to help streamline CAD import. The IGES,
STEP, and Parasolid CAD translators have been
upgraded, and direct integration with Pro/ENGI-
NEER has been enhanced. A new, native CATIA
V4 translator add-on* is now available, offering
much-improved results for CATIA V4 users. Further-
more, GAMBIT 2.1 can automatically adjust to
imported CAD tolerances, enabling use of the full
suite of Volume Boolean operations (Unite,
Subtract, Split) on most imported geometries.
The cleanup of imported geometries is now
made much easier than before, with a set of auto-
mated and semi-automated tools. Tasks that were
previously time-consuming can now be performed
quickly using a minimum of mouse clicks. The new
The imported geometry has one
extremely short edge (edge.173)
and several sharp corners; these
problems are automatically
found and fixed by the new
cleanup tools
An IGES surface geometry of a PVC
window profile extrusion die; GAMBIT creates
an ACIS solid upon import using the new tolerant
modeling option; Boolean operations are then used to
decompose the imported geometry into four volumes
GAMBIT 2.1:
A Breakthrough in
CAD Import
By Erling Eklund, GAMBIT Product Market Manager
tools allow the user to easily patch holes and close
cracks in the geometry, eliminate short edges and
sharp face angles that can cause bad mesh qual-
ity, and remove unwanted geometric features that
are not needed for the CFD simulation. The Guided
Cleanup capability offers a semi-automatic tool
that identifies, zooms-in, and highlights areas that
can cause connectivity and mesh quality prob-
lems. For each problem area, a choice of repair
techniques is presented to the user, who can accept
the default choice or select another method. (See
the Support Corner article on the next page for
more information on this functionality.) Several
other tools are also available to improve import-
ed geometries. These can be used to crop sharp
angles, split surfaces and volumes with a few mouse
clicks, and intersect surfaces of all types.
GAMBIT 2.0.4, released in February of this year,
introduced a new level of meshing automation with
the introduction of Size Functions, time-saving tools
for controlling mesh density and transition rates
product news
from small to large elements. In GAMBIT 2.1, the
Size Function capability has been improved, deliv-
ering faster and more-accurate mesh generation.
The Cartesian Stair-step meshing algorithm has
become more efficient, offering improved speed
while requiring less memory. This capability has
been merged with the hybrid meshing routines
to allow a new type of HexCore mesh, which
features a tet/hybrid mesh adjacent to walls and
a Cartesian mesh in core flow regions. HexCore
meshes combine the automation and geometric
flexibility of tet/hybrid meshes with greatly
reduced cell counts in many applications.
Finally, application-specific templates, devel-
oped by Fluent consultants, can be created that
offer customized GUIs to facilitate geometry and
mesh generation for single applications, such as
cyclone separators, packed beds, and coal-fired
furnaces. Contact your technical support engi-
neer if this option is of interest to you.
*Contact your Fluent sales representative for pricing information.
An example of a HexCore mesh, used in combination
with tet and Coopered mesh topologies
Figures courtesy of Kmmerling Kunststoff GmbH
Fluent NEWS fall 2002 39
support corner

ore and more CFD users are relying on the direct use of CAD mod-

M els, created during the design stage, to streamline the CFD model
building process, saving time and money. GAMBIT now supports
a wide range of options for data exchange with other CAD/CAE systems,
and in this article, several fundamental issues affecting CAD interoperabil-
ity are reviewed. In addition, tips are provided to help you at the upstream
end (the originating CAD system), and to introduce you to the CAD repair
tools available at the downstream end (GAMBIT), including the new cleanup
tool in GAMBIT 2.1.

what goes wrong during CAD import?

This figure illustrates the detection of a hole in the model using the cleanup tool;
a simple mouse click will patch this hole by creating a surface from the boundary
edges listed in the picture
CAD interoperability, or the ability to share a CAD model across differ-
ent applications, remains one of the biggest challenges facing industrial engi-
neers today. Hidden errors and anomalies on the upstream side (where the
CAD model is created), as well as translation issues, often result in numer-
ous problems and frustrations for the downstream (where the model is received)
users. Some of the issues that affect data exchange from one CAD system
to another are:

1. model quality in the originating CAD system

CAD
Many times the original model itself is of poor quality. Common prob-
lems include missing parts, invalid definition, and lack of connectivity.
These problems could be due to user error, numerical limitation of the
CAD system, and/or design requirements. Many CAD models work fine

Import &
for design and drafting, but they do not have the quality required for
CFD meshing operations.

2. semantics
Each CAD system does some customization or adds local flavors to enhance
its primary objectives. This leads to differences in the way a data type

Cleanup in is interpreted by each package. Thus, when a model is moved from one
system to another, inaccuracies can be introduced due to mismatches
or poor communication.

GAMBIT
3. differences in tolerance
Geometry data are often in parametric form, accurate to the order of
the specified tolerance. Differences in tolerance introduce gaps and over-
laps in the model. CAD systems often use a loose (1e-03) tolerance since
it is usually good enough for their primary purpose, and improves speed
By Shyam Kishor, GAMBIT Product Support Manager and memory requirements. GAMBIT, on the other hand, uses a toler-
ance of 1e-06, since it needs precise accuracy for Boolean operations
and splits. This difference can result in a gap between adjacent entities
or between the boundary curve and surface data.

4. limitations of translation
Inaccuracies are also introduced by translation errors. Often all the data
types of a CAD system do not have a one-to-one mapping with the stan-
dard formats used by translators, so approximations need to be made.
Approximations are also applied when converting data from the stan-
dard format of the translator to the format used by the receiving system.

40 Fluent NEWS fall 2002

 support corner

helpful tips for the upstream end

Tighter tolerance: If possible, tighter tolerance (~1e-06) should
be used in the CAD system. It will significantly improve the
quality of data after import into GAMBIT.
Solid models: Solid models are always better to use than A selection of operations and tools is available
in GAMBIT for geometry cleanup
wireframe models, since they store connectivity information.
The use of STEP, ACIS, PARASOLID and native CAD formats
(if available) are preferable to other options since they all
support data exchange using geometric solids. Some of the common problems in an imported file that can
Simplifications: Simplifying the model in the originating adversely affect meshing include:
CAD system can save a great deal of time and effort Short edges Sliver faces Faces with small area
downstream. If possible, extra details not needed for Cracks Holes Faces with sharp angles
CFD analysis should be removed, and flow volumes Dangling edges
should be generated before exporting the model.
To illustrate how the cleanup tool works, consider short edge removal as
helpful tips for the downstream end an example. The following steps are followed during the operation.
While fixing the problems upstream yields the best results, Problematic entities (e.g. all the edges shorter than a specified value) are
doing so is not always possible. CFD analysts usually do not automatically detected and listed. (A preset default is used to specify the
have control over how a model is first created, so they are limiting value, which can be changed by the user.)
forced to deal with problematic CAD files created without any The user selects an item in the list, and it is automatically highlighted in
thought given to their subsequent use by others. In the graphics window and on the list.
GAMBIT 2.1, several new tools are available to make repairs Options become available to automatically zoom into (and out of) the
to imperfect CAD models: selected region. Controls for local visibility and shading are available for
Healing: Healing is designed to automatically detect better visual diagnostics.
and repair geometric and topological inaccuracies in An appropriate fix for the problem is selected and presented to the user,
the imported model by performing the following who can then accept the default fix or switch to an alternative method
operations: (1) simplifying data by converting spline and/or other options.
surfaces to analytic surfaces (e.g. a cylinder or After repairing the area, GAMBIT shows the result. Users can then move
sphere) wherever possible; (2) correcting topological directly to the next item for repair. An option is also available to process the
problems by stitching; and (3) bridging gaps entire list in one step by applying the default fix to all areas.
between boundary curves and surface data by Similar tools to fix other problems like cracks, holes, dangling edges, and
recomputing intersections after extending the small faces are also available.
surfaces.
Tolerant Modeling: Tolerant modeling in GAMBIT 2.1 want to learn more?
increases the scope of the data that GAMBIT can import. Check out the User Services Center, www.fluentusers.com, to read more
It solves problems associated with inaccurate data or about CAD import. In addition, your support engineer at Fluent will gladly
leaky models (with poor connectivity between answer any questions you may have about CAD import and cleanup in
neighboring elements, such as surfaces) and provides the GAMBIT.
framework for model healing and data translation. Since
poor connectivity may be an issue when a small tolerance is
used, this tool increases the tolerance in problem spots,
generating less precise, yet connected geometric elements. The
less precise geometry can then be used to create valid topologies
for mesh generation. Tolerant modeling does not assume (or
require) that the geometry agrees with the topology, and takes
the geometric error in the topology into consideration during
modeling operations and calculations.
Note: Both healing and tolerant modeling options are available during import.
The clean up
They should be used if normal import does not produce the desired results. panel used for
The model should always be examined (using visual checks as well as the short edges in
check commands in GAMBIT) after using these options to verify that the GAMBIT
improvements are consistent with your expectations.
The Cleanup Tool: In addition to the automated tools described
above, GAMBIT 2.1 has a semi-automated cleanup tool. The
cleanup tool is actually a set of interactive tools that quickly
identifies, zooms in on, and highlights areas that cause
connectivity and mesh quality problems.

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 41

partnerships

EASy! for Pumps Design Software Uses Fluent Technology

luents partner in turbomachinery The combination of tools from

F design software, Concepts NREC,

has announced the release of their
new EASy! for Pumps software. EASy! for
Pumps provides designers with a com-
plete system for the design of pump flow
paths including impellers, diffusers, and
volutes. The system integrates meanline,
quasi-3D, and CFD analysis to produce
optimized designs. Fluent technology
enables EASy! for Pumps to include the
ability to design and analyze the volute.
Wizard-driven and including optimiza-
tion technology, EASy! for Pumps makes
sophisticated design technology more
accessible than ever before.
EASy! for Pumps design software complements FLUENT for pump
stage design
Fluent and Concepts NREC is extremely
powerful, notes Dr. David Japikse,
founder and chairman of Concepts NREC.
Concepts NREC offers an outstanding
design system and Fluents general
CFD capability complements this with
sophisticated analysis capabilities for cav-
itation, erosion, heat transfer, flow transients,
and multiphase flows. We hope the con-
tinued integration of our tools will create
real benefits for users of our software.
more.info@
conceptsnrec@fluent.com

gO:CFD Integrates FLUENT FLUENT / RELAP5-3D

with gPROMS for Reactive Integration Enters
Flow Modeling Validation Stage
rocess Systems Enterprise (PSE), a Fluent partner providing the

P gPROMS dynamic process modeling software, recently announced

a new product linking gPROMS to FLUENT for reactive flow mod-
eling. gO:CFD, the gPROMS Object for Reactive CFD provides
Integrated modeling between
FLUENT users with the option of using gPROMS flexible equation solv-
FLUENT and RELAP5-3D/ATHENA
ing environment to implement complex reaction chemistry in the con- allows detailed CFD simulations
text of their CFD simulations. to be combined with transient,
multiphase simulations of
Reactive flow modeling is one of the next frontiers for use of com- complex reactor systems
puter-aided engineering in the process industries, notes Ahmad Haidari,
Fluents US Chemical and Process Industry Director. We are pleased
to see gO:CFD emerge as a bridge between FLUENTs native capabil-
n 2001, the Idaho National The project at INEEL was motivated

I
ity and the customized models that our users would like to build and
access in gPROMS. Essentially a user-defined function for reacting Engineering & Environmental
flow modeling, gO:CFD provides a framework for implementation and Laboratory (INEEL) began work on
rapid solution of models that describe liquid phase reacting systems, an ambitious project to combine the
heterogeneous surface-catalyzed reactions, membrane chemistry, and capability of FLUENT with that of the
other complex thermo-chemical processes. RELAP5-3D/ATHENA advanced ther-
mal-hydraulic analysis code. RELAP5-
3D/ATHENA is widely used in the
nuclear industry for simulations
involving light water reactor systems,
including the steam supply system,
power system facilities, pipe transients,
and numerous systems involving two-
phase heat and mass transfer.
Now entering the validation and
verification stage of the project, INEEL
has demonstrated integrated mod-
eling in which detailed, three-dimen-
sional analyses performed using
FLUENT are dynamically coupled to
more.info@ boundary conditions and fluid prop-
www.psenterprise.com erties provided by a RELAP5-
3D/ATHENA balance-of-system model.
by the need for an advanced analy-
sis tool that would allow Generation
IV nuclear reactor systems to be mod-
eled and studied in detail. In addi-
tion, the new tool is applicable to many
other engineering problems both
in and outside of the nuclear indus-
try. Using the coupled solution, a
FLUENT model of a boiler combus-
tion chamber might be linked to a
RELAP5 model of the steam supply
system, leveraging RELAP5s strength
in 1D modeling of boiling and two-
phase phenomena. In addition,
FLUENT simulations will be linked to
the neutronics/reactor kinetics capa-
bility in RELAP5-3D/ATHENA.
more.info@
www.inel.gov/relap5

42 Fluent NEWS fall 2002

 partnerships

QNET Building Quality and Trust in Industrial CFD

By Chris Carey, Technical Services Manager, Fluent Europe

luent is taking part in a four- and in many cases, a specimen CFD of the project. The next meeting

F year European Union R&D

Thematic Network called
QNET-CFD. The project sets out to
assemble, structure and collate infor-
mation concerning the performance
of CFD in a wide range of indus-
tries. The Network comprises 45 part-
ners from the world of CFD
(industry, software suppliers, and
academics), collaborating to build
a library of CFD knowledge. This
is how the project works...
Each partner documents a sin-
gle Application Challenge a com-
plete, quality-assured industrial
strength test case for which reliable
experimental data are available, to
enable validation of CFD models.
In each case, the documentation
describes the problem in sufficient
detail for independent modelers to
calculate the flow using their code
of choice. It also presents the cor-
responding experimental data,
solution. The Application Challenges
are reviewed thoroughly by other
partners to ensure that they are suit-
will be held in Prague in May 2003.
Check the website to find out more
about the work and membership
able for inclusion in the database. of QNET-CFD, and obtain
Where appropriate, the Application electronic copies of the
Challenge includes best practices informative Network
guidelines for modeling the particular Newsletters.
flow conditions.
In addition to the Application
Challenges, the partners are also
developing a collection of more fun-
damental guidelines for Underlying
Flow Regimes. These materials doc-
ument CFD experience and best
practices for elemental flows rel-
evant to the Application
Challenges.
The QNET organi- Fluents Application Challenge in
QNET is the cyclone separator
zation holds an annu-
al workshop, open
to members
and non-
mem- more.info@
bers www.qnet-cfd.net

NAFEMS CFD Working Group

AFEMS The International Association for the These booklets are targeted at industrial users of CFD

N Engineering Analysis Community is a UK-based,

non-profit organization with over 650 members
distributed through 41 countries around the world, main-
and their managers. As the titles suggest, they are focused
on the process of applying CFD, as well as on the tech-
nology behind the software and related engineering
ly in Europe and North America. Its principal aim is to science.
promote the safe and reliable use of engineering analy- In addition to its publication work, the NAFEMS CFD
sis (EA) in industry. An important part of its activity is Working Party also holds seminars and workshops for mem-
the provision of training for EA practitioners. It publishes bers and non-members. The next, CFD in Industrial Turbulent
a large number of books containing how to guide- Flows, will be held in London in February 2003.
lines, benchmark studies, and background information - C. Carey
on EA for the benefit of its members; these books are
also made available for purchase by non-members.
Although best known for its work in solid mechan- more.info@
ics (especially finite element methods), five years ago www.nafems.org
NAFEMS established a CFD working group, whose mem-
bership includes industrial users of CFD and software
suppliers, including Fluent. The group has been work-
ing on a number of publications that parallel those
produced in the past for finite element analysis,
such as:
Why Do CFD
How To Get Started with CFD
How To Plan a CFD Analysis
How To Understand CFD Jargon

Fluent NEWS fall 2002 43

around Fluent
Fluent Worldwide
Corporate headquarters
Fluent Inc.
10 Cavendish Court
Fluent Benelux Opens in Wavre, Belgium Lebanon, NH 03766, USA
Tel: 603 643 2600
Fax: 603 643 3967
Email: info@fluent.com

USA regional offices

Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Tel: 734 213 6821
Evanston, IL 60201
Tel: 847 491 0200
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Tel: 408 522 8726
Morgantown, WV 26505
Tel: 304 598 3770

European regional offices

Fluent Benelux
Wavre, Belgium
Tel: 32 1045 2861
Email: info@fluent.be
Fluent Deutschland GmbH
Darmstadt, Germany
Tel: 49 6151 36440
Email: info@fluent.de
Fluent Europe Ltd.
Sheffield, England
Tel: 44 114 281 8888
s a worldwide company, Fluent has acknowl- people employed at Fluent Benelux, including a team

A
Email: info@fluent.co.uk
edged the importance of the Benelux market of highly qualified PhDs with many years of experi- Fluent France SA
(covering Belgium, the Netherlands, and ence in CFD, were previously employed by Polyflow Montigny le Bretonneux, France
Tel: 33 1 3060 9897
Luxembourg) and the dynamic involvement of many s.a. As a result of its ongoing growth, the local staff Email: info@fluent.fr
local companies in CFD. To meet the growing demands relocated to a new, larger office in Wavre shortly after Fluent Italia
of this community, Fluent opened a Benelux office based officially becoming Fluent Benelux. Milano, Italy
in Wavre, Belgium, close to Brussels, in January 2002. The main activities of the Benelux office address Tel: 39 02 8901 3378
Email: info@fluent.it
The new office offers opportunities for Fluent staff to work the needs of all Fluent software users in the region.
Fluent Sweden AB
closely with the local users and develop specific activ- This includes software sales, consulting services, tech- Goteborg, Sweden
ities of local interest. nical support, marketing, development, and license Tel: 46 31 771 8780
Fluent Benelux is one of the oldest Fluent offices administration for the entire suite of Fluent products. Email: info@fluent.se
in Europe, since it grew out of the Polyflow s.a. com- In addition, Product Market Management of FIDAP
Asian regional offices
pany in Louvain-la-Neuve. Indeed, most of the 20 and POLYFLOW software is based in this office.
Fluent Asia Pacific Co., Ltd.
Tokyo, Japan
Tel: 81 3 5324 7301
Email: info@fluent.co.jp
Osaka, Japan
IMechE Gives First-Ever Award for Tel: 81 6 6445 5690
Fluent India Pvt. Ltd.
Software to Fluent Europe Pune, India
Tel: 91 20 6056381
Email: info@fluent.co.in

pril 2002 was an dor; previous recipients include organizations that

A
exciting month for
the UK office, as the
prestigious Heritage Hallmark
Award from the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers
(IMechE) was presented
to Fluent Europe for the
FLUENT software code.
The IMechE has very
strict criteria for awards, and only gives out two or
three per year. The FLUENT code was recognized
because of the significant contribution it has made
to industrial innovation and mechanical engineer-
ing over the years. The honor marked the first time
that the Award has been given to a software ven-
44 Fluent NEWS fall 2002
Distributors
have produced the Channel Tunnel and Harrier Jump ATES Korea
Jet, along with well known companies such as Rolls Beijing Hi-key Technology
Corporation Ltd. China
Royce and Eurostar Trains. Cavendish Instruments de Mexico, S.A.
Commenting on the award, Fluent Europes de C.V. (CIM) Mexico, Venezuela,
Managing Director, Chris King said: I am delighted Argentina, Chile, Columbia
FEM++ Israel (POLYFLOW only)
to see this recognition of the quality and impact of FIGES Ltd. Turkey
FLUENT CFD software. The Institution of Mechanical Fluid Codes, Ltd. UK (serving Middle East)
Engineers is the UKs premier Mechanical Engineering J-ROM Israel
LEAP Australia Pty., Ltd. Australia &
forum and they do not give out these awards lightly. New Zealand
That they should have made the first such award for Process Flow, Ltd. Finland
QFINSOFT South Africa
a software product to FLUENT is all the more special. RCCM Japan (FIDAP & POLYFLOW only)
In doing so, they are recognizing the contribution that Scientific Formosa, Inc. Taiwan
the efforts of all sections of the Fluent organization have SimTec Ltd. Greece
SMARTtech Services & Systems, Ltd.
made to the establishment of CFD as an important engi- Brazil
neering tool in many industries. SymKom Poland
Taiwan Auto-Design Company (TADC)
Taiwan
Techsoft Engineering s.r.o
Czech Republic