DTRM Radiation Model, Atrium Natural VentilationDescriptionThis project simulates natural ventilation within a three-story atrium building using the Discrete Transfer Radiation Model (DTRM) in ANSYS Fluent, incorporating the combined effects of solar radiation and internal heat sources on airflow and temperature distribution throughout the space.The 3D geometry represents a three-story atrium building with rooms flanking both sides, featuring multiple air inlets, outlets, and a central atrium void connecting all levels. The domain was meshed using an unstructured grid totaling 709,511 cells.MethodologyRadiation heat transfer was captured using DTRM, which approximates radiative transport using a discrete set of rays traced through the domain. Solar ray tracing was incorporated to accurately capture solar radiation effects, accounting for both direct and diffuse irradiation based on the building's specific geographical location and time — modeled for Montreal, Canada, at 13:00 on July 15th. Natural convection modeling captured the resulting buoyancy-driven air movement throughout the atrium and connected rooms.Boundary conditions were configured for the various air inlets, outlets, and internal heat sources, with material properties assigned to the glass exterior and internal structural elements to appropriately capture their radiative and thermal behavior.ConclusionResults include temperature distributions throughout the atrium and surrounding rooms, pressure and velocity fields illustrating airflow movement patterns, density variations driving the natural ventilation process, and velocity vectors showing the resulting airflow circulation throughout the building.Together, these results demonstrate how solar radiation entering through the glass exterior interacts with internal heat sources to drive buoyancy-induced natural ventilation throughout the atrium — offering insight directly applicable to optimizing naturally ventilated building designs, atrium planning, and solar gain management for improved thermal comfort and energy efficiency in multi-story architectural spaces.

S2S Radiation Model, Radiative Space Heater CFD SimulationDescriptionThis project simulates a radiative space heater using the Surface-to-Surface (S2S) radiation model in ANSYS Fluent, illustrating radiation heat transfer in a non-participating medium — meaning the air within the heater neither absorbs, emits, nor scatters radiation, leaving heat exchange to occur purely between surfaces.The 3D geometry represents the heater's interior, featuring heating cylinders paired with parabolic reflector plates, meshed using an unstructured grid totaling 703,545 cells.MethodologyThe S2S radiation model is well-suited to enclosures with gray-diffuse surfaces where the surrounding medium doesn't participate in radiation, accounting for surface-to-surface radiative exchange based on each surface's size, distance, and relative orientation through calculated view factors. Since the medium itself is neglected in this model — no absorption, emission, or scattering occurs within it — the simulation focuses entirely on the geometric relationships between the radiating heating cylinders and the parabolic reflector plates, and how effectively that geometry directs radiative heat toward the desired output direction.ConclusionResults include temperature distribution throughout the heater's interior, temperature gradients illustrating the resulting heat flow patterns, and the radiation exchange occurring between the heating elements and the reflector plates.These results demonstrate how the reflector geometry shapes and redirects radiative output from the heating cylinders, offering insight directly applicable to optimizing reflector design for more efficient and directed heat distribution — relevant not only to space heater design but to any application relying on surface-to-surface radiative exchange, such as electronic enclosure thermal management or oven and furnace design.

DescriptionThis project simulates a parabolic trough reflector using ANSYS Fluent. A parabolic trough reflector is a type of solar energy collector — a cornerstone technology of concentrated solar power (CSP) — consisting of a long, parabolic mirror that focuses incoming sunlight onto a receiver tube positioned along the focal line of the parabola. The concentrated solar energy heats a working fluid flowing through the tube, which can then be used to generate steam and, in turn, produce electricity via a turbine.The geometry was created in SpaceClaim, modeling a 3 m long section of the system. It was then meshed in ANSYS Meshing using polyhedral elements, with a total count of 1,330,520.MethodologyTo simulate the problem, the Discrete Ordinates (DO) radiation model was employed together with a laminar flow model. Because the installation is located in Egypt, the longitude, latitude, and time zone were set according to the site's real geographic data so that the solar load could be represented accurately.ResultsWater enters the tube at 25 °C, with the ambient temperature also set to 25 °C; consequently, solar radiation is the only mechanism available to raise the water temperature. The water flows at a velocity of 0.1 m/s, and at the simulated time the solar irradiation is 968 W/m². The software reports an outlet temperature of 26.45 °C, corresponding to a rise of roughly 1.5 °C along the tube.The contours clearly show how the parabolic reflector concentrates most of the incoming irradiation onto the receiver tube. In addition, the reflector plate surface reaches a temperature of 36 °C.

DescriptionThis project simulates a solar collector equipped with flat micro-heat pipe arrays (FMHPA) using ANSYS Fluent, a renewable energy technology that captures solar heat and transports it via an internal working fluid rather than through direct fluid heating alone. The collector sits inside a parabolic computational zone representing the surrounding air environment, and its structure is layered: an outer cylindrical glass surface absorbs solar radiation, an air gap beneath it channels that captured heat inward, and rows of micro-scale, square-cross-section pipes carry the working fluid that ultimately delivers the heat out of the system. The working fluid picks up heat and vaporizes in the initial section, the evaporation zone, then travels to the far end of the collector where it meets a heat exchanger airflow, loses its heat, and condenses again in the condensation zone. The 3D geometry, spanning the outdoor environment, glass layers, air gap, and FMHPA pipes, is built in Design Modeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing with a structured grid of 153,680 cells.MethodologyTurbulence is resolved with the standard k-epsilon model using Menter-Lechner near-wall treatment, and the energy equation is active throughout. Solar heating is captured through the Solar Ray Tracing radiation model, with both direct and diffuse irradiation computed via the solar calculator based on the collector's geographic coordinates, orientation, and the specified date and time of the simulated exposure. The simulation is unsteady and pressure-based, with gravity included at standard acceleration. The working fluid enters through a mass flow inlet at 0.01088 kg/s and 126.2°C, and exits through a pressure outlet at 0 Pa gauge, with both boundaries participating in solar ray tracing; inner walls are coupled and opaque, while outer walls are set to zero heat flux and also opaque. Pressure-velocity coupling uses the Coupled scheme, with second-order discretization for pressure, momentum, and energy, and first-order upwind for the turbulence quantities, initialized using the hybrid method.AnalysisThe resulting 2D and 3D temperature, pressure, and velocity contours trace the working fluid's thermal cycle through the collector: temperature rises in the evaporation zone as the fluid absorbs heat transmitted through the glass layer and air gap from solar radiation, then falls in the condensation zone as that same fluid gives up its heat to the external heat exchanger airflow. This temperature progression confirms the collector is successfully transporting solar heat from the absorbing outer layer into a usable thermal output at the condensation end,

Flat Plate Solar Collector — Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) ANSYS Fluent CFD SimulationDescriptionFlat plate solar collectors (FPSC), and the photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) systems built around them, convert sunlight into useful heat — most commonly by warming water that flows through pipes bonded to a sun-facing absorber plate. Their performance depends on the collector design, the materials of each layer, and the installation conditions: geographic location and tilt angle directly determine how much solar energy the panel receives.This project uses ANSYS Fluent to simulate an FPSC installed in Doha at a 45° tilt angle, solving the full conjugate heat transfer (CHT) problem to capture how solar radiation heats the water passing through the collector's pipes. Because the model resolves the solid layers, the pipe walls, and the water flow as one coupled thermal system — and includes the heat generated inside the PV layer itself — it represents a true PV/T simulation rather than a simple solar-heating case.MethodologyThe collector geometry is created in Design Modeler, and a tetrahedral mesh of approximately 5,590,000 elements is generated in ANSYS Meshing. A mesh of this size is required to resolve the thin solid layers, the pipe walls, and the water domain together within a single coupled model.The simulation couples three sets of physics:The Navier–Stokes equations for the water flow inside the pipesThe energy equation for heat transfer through both the fluid and the solid layers (conjugate heat transfer)The Discrete Ordinates (DO) radiation model for the incoming solar irradiation, set at 800 W/m²Water enters the collector at 300 K with a mass flow rate of 0.02 kg/s and exits at atmospheric pressure. A key feature of the model is the treatment of the PV layer: instead of representing the panel as a simple absorbing surface, the volumetric heat flux inside the PV layer is calculated from the solar flux, the glass transmittance, the PV absorption coefficient, the panel efficiency, and the PV layer thickness, and is then applied as a volumetric heat source. This physically based heat generation term is what distinguishes the case as a genuine PV/T simulation.AnalysisAt the end of the solution process, temperature contours and volume-averaged results are extracted to evaluate the thermal performance of the collector. The results clearly show how solar radiation progressively raises the water temperature as it travels through the collector pipes: the average water temperature reaches about 306.5 K, while the average PV layer temperature reaches about 310.1 K — the panel running hotter than the water it heats, exactly as expected in a PV/T system.By completing this project, you will be able to set up a coupled CHT simulation with radiation, apply the DO model for solar loading based on location and tilt, implement a volumetric heat source derived from physical panel parameters, and interpret the temperature distribution across a multi-layer solar collector.

Solar Heat Exchanger, ANSYS Fluent CFD Simulation TutorialDescriptionThis project investigates a specialized solar heat exchanger design featuring a solar absorber plate, an air gap, and internal flow barriers that together capture solar thermal energy and transfer it to a working fluid. The system uses a dual-medium approach — an air gap positioned between the front plate and the absorber, paired with a water flow channel routed through strategic internal barriers to extend fluid residence time and improve heat transfer.Heat moves through the system in stages: solar radiation is first absorbed at the absorber plate, warming the adjacent air gap through combined radiation and convection; heat then conducts through the absorber plate itself before transferring convectively into the water flowing through the extended channel formed by the internal barriers.The domain was meshed in ANSYS Meshing using an unstructured grid totaling 304,200 elements, with increased resolution concentrated near the absorber plate and internal barriers to accurately capture the more complex local flow and thermal behavior in those regions.MethodologyRadiation was modeled using the Discrete Ordinates (DO) model, chosen for its ability to handle scattering media, semi-transparent boundaries, specular surfaces, and wavelength-dependent transmission — all relevant to accurately capturing how solar energy moves through the air gap and interacts with the absorber surface. Solar ray tracing was used to apply the incoming solar load directly, with direct solar radiation set to 1150 W/m² and diffuse solar radiation to 80 W/m², striking the absorber plane at a perpendicular incidence angle.Water entered the flow channel at 4 m/s and 30°C, with the outlet held at atmospheric pressure. The air gap was governed by natural convection combined with radiation heat transfer, while the absorber surface itself served as the primary thermal boundary receiving the solar load.ConclusionResults characterize the system's thermal and flow behavior in detail: temperature distribution throughout the exchanger reveals the primary heat transfer pathways, with the absorber's surface temperature profile and the water's progressive temperature rise along its extended flow path both clearly captured. Velocity and pressure results show how the internal barriers shape flow development, identify any recirculation zones that may enhance or hinder thermal mixing, and quantify the pressure drop introduced by the extended flow path.Radiation-specific results further reveal how absorbed solar energy distributes across the absorber surface, the resulting thermal stratification within the air gap, and the relative contributions of direct versus diffuse solar radiation to overall system performance, alongside an assessment of thermal losses not ultimately transferred to the working fluid.Together, these results demonstrate that combining strategic flow path extension with optimized solar absorption achieves effective thermal energy capture and transfer — providing practical guidance for barrier placement, flow rate selection, and overall design optimization in solar thermal heat exchanger applications.

DescriptionThis project simulates a floating solar panel system, a photovoltaic installation deployed on a water surface rather than on land, using ANSYS Fluent. Floating this way brings several advantages over conventional ground-mounted panels: the water's cooling effect improves energy output, land use is freed up for other purposes, and the panel coverage helps reduce evaporation and limit algae growth on the water body beneath it. The simulation is fully 3D, capturing the panel floating on the water surface as it responds to the surrounding air and water phases. The geometry, comprising the water tank and floating panel, is built in SpaceClaim and meshed in ANSYS Meshing with a grid of 479,895 cells.MethodologyWater and air are modeled as two interacting phases using the Volume of Fluid (VOF) multiphase model, capturing the free surface the panel floats on. Because the panel needs to move and settle naturally under buoyancy, a 6-degree-of-freedom dynamic mesh is used, allowing the panel to float freely, with remeshing and smoothing keeping the mesh valid as it moves. Radiation is also activated, using the Discrete Ordinates model, to capture how sunlight reaches and heats the panel surface.AnalysisThe volume fraction contour shows a clean, stable interface between air and water, indicating the panel maintains steady buoyancy without disruptive interface instabilities that could otherwise compromise its floating stability and energy generation. The incident radiation contour shows a largely uniform distribution of sunlight across the panel surface, supporting consistent energy output, while the temperature distribution shows a stable thermal profile with no significant hotspots, suggesting the design avoids the localized heating that would otherwise degrade efficiency or panel materials over time. Together, these results indicate the floating panel system performs reliably in its intended floating, sun-exposed environment.

DescriptionThis project investigates the performance of a step solar desalination unit (solar still) using ANSYS Fluent, studied through CFD analysis. Producing potable water from saline sources is a central goal of clean water engineering, and the solar still achieves this passively — using nothing but solar energy to convert brackish or seawater into fresh water.The model consists of a small chamber with a sloping glass surface on each side and a series of steps inside, over which saline water flows. Solar radiation passes through the glass to the water surface on the steps, evaporating it; the resulting vapor then meets the cold glass surface and condenses in a distillation process. The freshwater produced by condensation runs down the slope of the glass plate and is discharged as pure water.The model was built in 3D using Design Modeler. Because the geometry is symmetric, only one-quarter of it is modeled. This quarter-geometry comprises two sloping glass surfaces and the steps that carry the water flow. Meshing was performed in ANSYS Meshing, producing 809,037 elements.MethodologyTo convert saline water into fresh water, the water must first be turned into vapor and then condensed back into liquid. A solar still typically consists of a sloped glass cover placed over the device and a stepped platform that holds the saline water to be distilled. The glass cover acts as both a rigid substrate and a transparent layer that admits the sun's rays, while the heat needed to generate vapor comes from the solar energy absorbed inside the device. The vapor then rises, strikes the cool glass cover, and condenses into fresh water.To capture this, the Solar Ray Tracing model is enabled to represent the absorbed solar heat, and the Species Transport model is activated to model the two components — water and vapor — inside the chamber. This approach treats the chamber interior as a water-vapor mixture and does not explicitly simulate the flow of the distilled water. At the start of the simulation, the interior is filled entirely with vapor; the bottom plane of the chamber represents the water surface, and since evaporation occurs there, this surface is treated as vapor.Constant values of 1.00314 × 10⁻⁵ m²/s and 0.0002 kg/m·s are assigned to the mass diffusion coefficient and the thermal diffusion coefficient, respectively, governing the conversion between water and vapor. The sloping plate where the vapor condenses is assumed to consist only of vapor. The ambient air temperature is taken as 311.75 K with a heat transfer coefficient of 25 W/m²K. The stepped platform holding the saline water is assumed to absorb heat with no transmissivity, while the glass cover is assumed to have maximum transmissivity and no absorbance. Gravity is enabled in the Y direction, and the incompressible ideal-gas model is used to account for the density difference between water and vapor.ConclusionOn completion of the solution, three-dimensional contours of velocity, temperature, velocity vectors, and species mass fraction inside the still were obtained.The velocity contours and vectors show how the generated vapor rises within the device to strike the upper sloped glass surface. The 3D temperature contour makes clear that the saline water on the stepped platform has heated up enough to evaporate, while the glass cover remains cold enough to condense the vapor, which then slides down to the lower part of the device where the fresh water is collected. Finally, the species mass fraction contour shows a water mass fraction of one on the stepped platform and the glass substrate, while the water fraction decreases within the interior space — confirming that vapor is forming there. Together, these results demonstrate the complete evaporation-condensation cycle that enables the solar still to deliver clean, desalinated water using only solar energy.

Greenhouse Ventilation — ANSYS Fluent CFD SimulationDescriptionThis project simulates air ventilation inside a greenhouse using ANSYS Fluent, with particular attention to how internal fans and floor heating drive air circulation. A greenhouse must maintain the right temperature and air movement for the plants inside, and this is achieved through a combination of heating and fan-driven ventilation. The simulation captures how heat from the floor and airflow from the fans together set up the circulation that distributes warmth through the space. Within the Fan: Beginner CFD Training Package, this project applies fan-driven ventilation to a large enclosed space, combining fans, floor heating, convection, and radiation in a single case.MethodologyThe three-dimensional geometry — 10 m long, 3.15 m high, and 4 m wide — is built in SpaceClaim and meshed in ANSYS Meshing with 216,456 elements. Given the time-dependent nature of the circulation process, a transient solver is used throughout. Ventilation is driven by two small fans, each 5 cm in radius, rotating at 100 rad/s inside the greenhouse. The floor is heated with a fixed heat flux of 250 W/m², while the side walls exchange heat with the outside air through convection, defined by a heat-transfer coefficient of 30 W/m²K and a free-stream temperature of 300 K. A radiation model is also activated to capture radiative heat transfer alongside convection. Turbulence and temperature distribution are resolved using the realizable k-epsilon model together with the energy equation, and air density is allowed to follow the ideal-gas law so that the buoyancy effects from heating are captured rather than assumed away.AnalysisThe resulting velocity and temperature contours show the expected buoyancy-driven behavior: air near the greenhouse floor heats up and becomes less dense over time, while the surrounding cooler air, being denser, sinks and displaces it. This density difference sets up a natural circulation pattern, which the two fans reinforce and accelerate, sustaining a continuous cycle of heat transport through the greenhouse volume. From these results you can evaluate how effectively the fans and floor heating together ventilate and warm the greenhouse, and how the temperature and airflow distribute through the space. By the end of this project, you'll be able to set up a transient greenhouse-ventilation simulation combining fans, floor heating, convection, and radiation, apply the ideal-gas model to capture buoyancy, and interpret the velocity and temperature fields that describe the circulation sustaining a healthy growing environment.

Urban Heat Island (UHI) CFD Simulation on a Real Urban Zone, ANSYS Fluent TrainingDescriptionThis project simulates airflow and heat transfer over a real urban area — the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) campus in Auckland, New Zealand — to study the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect using ANSYS Fluent.Urban heat island and pedestrian comfort are central concerns in urban planning. As cities grow denser and taller, buildings reshape local wind patterns and trap heat, creating uncomfortable or even unsafe conditions at street level. CFD lets planners predict wind speed and temperature around a real building layout while the design is still on the drawing board, so problem areas can be identified and fixed before anything is built.The study has two goals: to map pedestrian wind comfort and flag locations where wind speed exceeds 3.8 m/s, and to check outdoor thermal comfort, where the aim is to keep the campus area below 295 K.The real building footprints were extracted from Google Earth Pro, and the corresponding geometry and building volumes were reconstructed in ANSYS Design Modeler as a main domain (the campus itself) surrounded by a larger subdomain that captures the incoming wind.Simulation MethodologyThe analysis is carried out in two parts: wind comfort and thermal comfort.For the wind-comfort study, note that Auckland's airflow is predominantly from the southwest, shifting toward the northeast in summer as the high-pressure belt moves south, and that coastal areas are consistently windier than sheltered inland ones. Using representative wind conditions for the site, the model resolves the wind field around the buildings and evaluates it against standard pedestrian wind-comfort criteria.For the thermal-comfort study, solar loading is applied with the Discrete Ordinates (DO) radiation model, set from the site's geographic coordinates for mid-February at 1 p.m. The building surfaces are assigned a representative heat flux, the ground surface is fixed at 286.15 K, and the incoming free-stream air is set to 288.15 K, based on local meteorological data. Together these drive the temperature field that forms the urban heat island.Results & ConclusionThe velocity contours show that buildings directly exposed to the wind experience speeds up to about 30 km/h (≈ 8.3 m/s) at some points, well above the pedestrian-comfort limit. As the air moves into the passages between buildings it slows to around 10 km/h (≈ 2.8 m/s), which is comfortable, and it is damped further in the rear rows of buildings.On the thermal side, the incident solar radiation over the domain ranges from about 1560 to 1700 W/m²; taller buildings absorb more, while the passages between them receive less because of shading. Temperature contours were extracted at several heights above the ground: at 0.5 m the average is about 287.46 K with a local peak of 295.77 K, at 1 m the average rises to 287.96 K (peak 292.58 K), at 1.5 m the field changes little, and at 2 m the peak reaches 294.87 K. The warm zones between buildings come from heat rejected by the surrounding surfaces — the signature of the urban heat island — and one low but wide building (the meeting hall) cools more slowly and holds the highest roof temperatures.Overall, the wind-comfort criterion is exceeded in several exposed areas, particularly toward the suburbs, so the study points to mitigations such as windbreaks or added vegetation and greater spacing between closely packed buildings to avoid narrow, high-speed street canyons. The thermal-comfort target of 295 K is met across almost the entire campus at pedestrian height, with only a small, localized area reaching it, so heat is not expected to cause meaningful hardship for people using the campus.