Dimpled Cylinder Flow Control, Paper Numerical Validation, ANSYS Fluent Training

Comprehension of CFD Simulation of Water Flow Around a Dimpled Cylinder

Project Description

This simulation models water flow within a rectangular domain around a dimpled cylindrical body using ANSYS Fluent. It is validated against the study “Control of flow past a dimpled circular cylinder.”

Model Design

The model runs on water with a Reynolds number of 17,980, which corresponds to an inlet speed of 0.45 m/s.  Applied with a DF (dimple full) pattern, the vertical cylinder inside the flow domain has dimples on its inner surface.  Designed in SOLIDWORKS, the computational domain is a rectangular cube (6 m x 0.3 m x 0.4 m), with a cylinder (0.4 m length, 0.04 m diameter).  Composed of 1,966,490 components, the mesh is organised.

Methodology

The emphasis is on evaluating aerodynamic forces, such lift and drag, on the surface of the cylinder.  These forces and coefficients are obtained by means of steady and transient simulations 60s with 1s time steps.

Results and Conclusion

In transient simulations, drag and lift coefficients stabilise and are compared with reference data.  Dimple size is determined by diameter-to-cylinder ratio: 0.1 for diameter and 0.05 for depth.  Simulations produce 2D pressure and velocity contours for more study.