DescriptionThis project models and analyzes a centrifugal pump in ANSYS Fluent to study its aerodynamic performance. The impeller and volute geometry were created in SpaceClaim/Design Modeler and simulated under steady-state conditions at 1500 RPM with an inlet velocity of 140 m/s. The aim was to evaluate the velocity distribution and pressure rise across the pump as the rotating impeller transfers energy to the working fluid.Geometry & MeshThe 3D centrifugal pump, including the impeller blades and volute casing, was meshed in ANSYS Meshing using about 2 million tetrahedral cells. The mesh was refined around the blade passages and the volute to accurately capture the turbulence and pressure gradients in these critical regions.MethodologyThe simulation used a pressure-based, steady-state solver with the k-ω SST turbulence model, which is well suited to rotating machinery. The impeller rotation is represented using the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) approach, in which the impeller zone is assigned a rotating frame while the volute casing remains stationary — an efficient way to capture steady turbomachinery rotation without physically moving the mesh. The boundary conditions were a velocity inlet of 140 m/s and a pressure outlet, and the Coupled algorithm was used to ensure stable pressure-velocity convergence.ConclusionThe results show strong acceleration of the flow through the impeller, with outlet velocities reaching about 300 m/s. The pressure field exhibits a clear rise from inlet to outlet, with high pressure on the pressure side of the blades and low pressure on the suction side. The flow pattern within the volute confirms efficient energy transfer from the impeller rotation to the fluid, validating both the design and the CFD setup.Overall, the simulation reproduces the expected behavior of a centrifugal pump — converting mechanical rotational energy into increased fluid velocity and pressure — and demonstrates the effectiveness of the MRF approach for analyzing the steady rotating-impeller performance of turbomachinery.

DescriptionThis project uses ANSYS Fluent 2024 R2 to simulate a 3D centrifugal pump using the mesh motion (moving mesh) approach, a core application of the moving mesh module for capturing transient rotor-stator interaction. Unlike the steady MRF (Multiple Reference Frame) method used in a related pump study, this approach directly resolves the unsteady interaction between the rotating impeller and stationary casing, providing a more accurate representation of transient flow behavior and energy transfer from the impeller to the fluid.MethodologyThe geometry is built in SpaceClaim and DesignModeler, consisting of a rotating impeller zone and a stationary casing/volute zone connected through a non-conformal interface that allows relative rotation. The domain is meshed in ANSYS Meshing with approximately 2 million tetrahedral elements, resolving the casing, inlet, and impeller regions. The simulation uses a pressure-based, transient solver with the k-omega SST turbulence model, chosen for its robustness with rotating machinery and near-wall flow. Water is modeled as incompressible, the impeller rotates at 1500 RPM with mesh motion enabled, the inlet is set as a velocity inlet at 140 m/s, the outlet as a pressure outlet, and the Coupled algorithm is used for pressure-velocity coupling to aid convergence in transient conditions.ConclusionPressure contours show a clear rise from the impeller eye to the casing outlet, confirming energy transfer from the rotating blades to the fluid, with high pressure near the impeller exit and low pressure at the inlet, consistent with expected pump behavior. The mesh motion approach captures unsteady pressure fluctuations and localized vortices within the casing, along with directional flow development and secondary circulation that a steady MRF approach cannot resolve. These results validate mesh motion as an effective method for studying unsteady centrifugal pump behavior and confirm the pump's ability to accelerate the fluid and build pressure head.

Series Fans CFD Simulation Using MRF Method in ANSYS FluentIntroductionThis project investigates the steady-state airflow behavior between two 3-bladed series fans rotating at an angular velocity of 300 rpm using ANSYS Fluent, employing the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) method to capture the rotational effects of the fan blades on the surrounding flow field.Geometry and MeshThe three-dimensional geometry of the dual fan assembly was designed in SpaceClaim, and the domain was meshed using ANSYS Meshing, resulting in a total element count of 1,914,000.MethodologyThe rotation of the fans generates air suction at the inlet boundary, with a volumetric flow rate of 2.95755 m³/s. Along the domain centerline, air velocity reaches values up to 25 m/s, while the maximum velocity in the entire domain, 47.05 m/s, occurs downstream of the first fan. Turbulent flow behavior throughout the domain was resolved using the RNG k-epsilon turbulence model.Results and ConclusionTwo- and three-dimensional contours of pressure, velocity, velocity vectors, and streamlines were generated to characterize the flow field. Based on the calculated Fluent data, the air mass flow rate at the inlet equals 3.62019 kg/s. A comparison of the pressure drop across each fan reveals that the first fan produces a pressure drop roughly twice that of the second fan, at 500 Pa and 230 Pa, respectively. Negative gauge pressure is observed downstream of both fans, with the region downstream of the first fan reaching a value five times lower than that of the second fan, at -500 Pa compared to -100 Pa. Consistent with the higher pressure drop, the velocity magnitude downstream of the first fan is also higher, at 28 m/s, compared to 12 m/s downstream of the second fan, confirming that the first fan experiences a more significant aerodynamic loading within the series configuration.

DescriptionThis project focuses on the acoustic analysis of a six-bladed fan using ANSYS Fluent. The main objective is to study the airflow behavior and noise generation around the fan under specific operating conditions. The simulation aims to predict the broadband noise levels and to examine the distribution of the pressure and velocity fields, in order to understand the fan's combined aerodynamic and acoustic performance. This analysis helps identify the regions chiefly responsible for high noise generation and can be used to improve fan design for greater efficiency and reduced noise.Geometry & MeshThe fan geometry was created in ANSYS Design Modeler and consists of three zones representing the flow domain and the fan structure. The model features six blades attached to a central hub within a cylindrical enclosure. The geometry was imported into ANSYS Meshing, where a non-conformal, unstructured mesh was generated. A fine tetrahedral mesh was used to capture the complex flow features around the blades, resulting in approximately 3 million elements. The mesh quality was carefully checked to ensure accurate flow and acoustic predictions while maintaining computational efficiency.MethodologyThe simulation was performed in ANSYS Fluent using a pressure-based, steady-state solver. Turbulence was modeled with the standard k–ε model together with standard wall functions to account for near-wall behavior. The fan rotation was represented using the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) approach at a rotational speed of 3000 RPM, and pressure inlet and pressure outlet boundary conditions were applied at the corresponding surfaces. The coupled algorithm handled the pressure-velocity coupling, and hybrid initialization was used to aid convergence. For the acoustic analysis, the Broadband Noise Sources model was employed to estimate the noise generated from the turbulent fluctuations in the flow.ConclusionThe results include contours of pressure, velocity, and acoustic power level across the fan domain. The pressure contours show higher-pressure regions near the leading edges of the blades and lower-pressure zones at the trailing edges, reflecting the lift effect produced by the rotation. The velocity contours reveal the maximum airspeed near the blade tips, demonstrating the strong tangential flow driven by the rotation. The acoustic power level plots indicate that the highest noise is concentrated around the blade tips and the outer casing, where the turbulent interactions and velocity gradients are most intense.Overall, the simulation successfully captures both the aerodynamic and acoustic behavior of the fan under steady operating conditions, showing how a broadband-noise acoustic model combined with the MRF approach can locate the dominant noise sources on a rotating fan and inform quieter, more efficient designs.

DescriptionThis project simulates the airflow over the impeller of an electric motor using ANSYS Fluent, investigated through CFD analysis. In an electric motor, this impeller acts as a cooling fan, driving air over the machine to carry away the heat generated by electrical losses in the windings and core — making its aerodynamic performance an important consideration in electrical and power machine design, since a motor's temperature limits its continuous rating, efficiency, and insulation life.Turbomachines, also known as fluid machines, are widely used across industry, so understanding their behavior in the surrounding fluid is essential. They fall into two broad categories: the first transfers energy to the fluid, while the second extracts energy from the fluid and delivers it to the system in various forms. Fans and compressors belong to the first group, while wind and water turbines belong to the second. An electric-motor impeller is itself a turbomachine of the first type, and studying the motion of its blades within the surrounding flow helps analyze its behavior and ultimately improve the design and material selection of the blades.Here, the airflow over the impeller is examined. Air enters the computational domain at 80 m/s, and the impeller rotates at 1000 rpm. The geometry was created in Design Modeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing using an unstructured grid of 1,786,708 cells.MethodologyThe rotation of the impeller is modeled using the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF), or Frame Motion, approach. In this method, the fluid around the impeller blades is treated as rotating while the blades themselves are held stationary, with the rotational velocity of the fluid set equal to that of the impeller. This is applied through the MRF tool in the Cell Zone Conditions — an efficient way to capture the steady rotating-blade behavior without physically moving the mesh.ConclusionOn completion of the solution, contours of pressure, velocity, and temperature were obtained, along with pathlines and velocity vectors around the blades. The pathlines clearly reveal the rotational motion of the flow around the impeller. The pressure contour shows higher pressure on the front face of the impeller, where it meets the incoming airflow, and a large pressure drop behind it. The velocity contour shows the velocity increasing radially, reaching its maximum around the blade tips — a clear signature of the impeller's rotation.Together, these results characterize how the impeller moves air through the motor, providing the kind of insight into cooling airflow and blade loading that supports the thermal management and design of electrical machines.

DescriptionThis project simulates fluid mixing inside a bioreactor agitated by a Rushton turbine using ANSYS Fluent, a mixing configuration widely used in pharmaceutical, food, biochemical, and perfumery applications wherever biochemical reactions require thorough fluid homogenization. The bioreactor is cylindrical, 0.8 m tall and 0.4 m in diameter, with a vertical stirrer mounted along its central axis. That stirrer is a Rushton-type turbine, a radial-flow impeller consisting of two rows of flat discs, each carrying six blades, chosen because radial-flow impellers of this type are a standard choice for mixing applications across process engineering. The geometry is built in Design Modeler and meshed in ANSYS Meshing with 3,558,726 elements, and given the inherently time-evolving nature of the mixing process, a transient solver is used.MethodologyThe rotational motion of the fluid around the Rushton turbine is defined using the Mesh Motion technique, with a distinct cylindrical inner region assigned a rotational velocity of 143 rpm about the vertical (Y) axis to represent the turbine's action on the surrounding fluid. Three rows of baffles line the interior of the bioreactor's cylindrical wall, breaking up the vortices that would otherwise form and reducing unwanted bulk rotation of the whole fluid volume. Turbulence is resolved using the RNG k-epsilon model.AnalysisThe results include 3D contours of pressure gradient, velocity, and turbulent kinetic energy throughout the bioreactor, along with 2D contours of pressure, velocity, and turbulent kinetic energy taken on two planes perpendicular to the stirrer axis, each passing through one of the turbine's disc rows. These fields show velocity and rotational flow intensifying around the impeller blades, exactly where the turbine imparts momentum to the fluid. Velocity vectors, examined in both 2D and 3D, trace how the fluid circulates fully around the stirrer's rotation axis, confirming the Rushton turbine is generating the s

DescriptionThis project simulates airflow through an axial flow compressor, specifically NASA Rotor 37, using ANSYS Fluent. To keep the model tractable, only a single row of rotating blades on the central rotor is represented rather than the full multi-stage compressor assembly. The blades rotate at 14043 rpm, with an air mass flow rate of 33.25 kg/s through the compressor, and the goal is to characterize how the airflow behaves and how pressure builds around the blades as the air is compressed. The 3D geometry is built in SOLIDWORKS and imported into Design Modeler, then meshed in ANSYS Meshing with an unstructured grid of 278,162 elements.MethodologyGiven the compressibility of the flow, the density-based solver is used. Rotor motion is handled through the Frame Motion technique: the blades themselves are treated as stationary, while the surrounding fluid domain is given a rotational speed equal to the rotor's, effectively reversing which frame moves so the flow field around the blades can be resolved in a rotating reference frame. Correspondingly, the compressor blade walls are set as moving walls with zero rotational speed relative to that rotating frame, keeping the blade surface consistent with the "stationary blade" assumption.AnalysisThe results include both 2D and 3D contours of pressure, temperature, velocity, and density, along with path lines and velocity vectors describing the flow around the blades. The 2D contours and path lines are extracted on a YZ plane perpendicular to the compressor axis, cutting through the mid-span of the blade passage, giving a clear view of how the flow develops as it moves through the blade row. Pressure, temperature, and heat transfer coefficient distributions are also reported directly on the blade surfaces, characterizing the thermal and aerodynamic loading the blades experience during compression.

Air Compressor Acoustics Analysis in ANSYS FluentIntroductionThis project investigates the aeroacoustics and noise generation mechanisms of airflow within a four-row multistage axial flow compressor using ANSYS Fluent. As engine manufacturers continue to prioritize noise reduction as a key design objective, understanding the acoustic contribution of individual engine components has become an essential first step toward developing effective noise mitigation strategies. This simulation focuses specifically on quantifying and visualizing the sound power generated by the rotor and stator stages of a compressor assembly, building on prior turbomachinery flow analysis of the same geometry.Geometry and MeshThe three-dimensional compressor geometry was constructed in Design Modeler, comprising two rotor rows and two stator rows, with each row containing 22 airfoil-section blades. The rotor blades feature aerodynamic deflection, while the stator blades remain horizontal without deflection. Taking advantage of the geometry's rotational symmetry, only a single blade passage from each rotor and stator row was modeled, with periodic boundary conditions applied to the lateral surfaces to represent the full annular assembly while substantially reducing computational cost. The domain was discretized in ANSYS Meshing using an unstructured mesh totaling 972,354 elements, providing adequate resolution for capturing the flow and acoustic phenomena around the blade rows.MethodologyThe acoustic analysis was performed using the Broadband Noise Sources model within Fluent, applied on top of the underlying turbomachinery flow solution obtained with periodic boundary conditions. Reference acoustic properties were defined consistent with standard air conditions: a density of 1.225 kg/m³, a sound speed of 340 m/s, and a reference acoustic power of 1×10⁻¹² W, forming the basis for computing acoustic power level contours throughout the domain.Results and ConclusionResults indicate that the rotor rows are the dominant source of noise generation within the compressor stage, exhibiting substantially higher acoustic power levels in the corresponding contour plots compared to the stator rows. Contours of the linearized Euler equations further illustrate how sound waves propagate through the gap region between successive rotor and stator rows, offering insight into the spatial distribution and directivity of noise transmission within the multistage compressor.

DescriptionThis project simulates the water flow through a Francis hydraulic turbine using ANSYS Fluent. As a cornerstone of hydroelectric power generation, a water turbine is a turbomachine that converts the kinetic energy of flowing water — or the potential energy stored in a head (height) difference — into mechanical rotational motion, which is subsequently transformed into electrical power by a coupled generator.The Francis turbine is one of the most widely deployed turbine types in power plants because the arrangement of its blades allows it to harness kinetic and potential energy simultaneously, making it highly effective across a broad range of head and flow conditions.In operation, water first enters the volute (spiral casing), whose circular geometry imparts a rotational (swirling) component to the incoming flow. This swirl ensures the fluid strikes the blades at the correct angle, maximizing operational efficiency. The flow is then delivered at a controlled rate to the runner blades, where the momentum of the water drives the runner and produces useful mechanical work. Finally, the water exits the runner in an axial direction.In the present case, water enters the turbine's inner chamber at a mass flow rate of 1.996 kg/s, with the runner blades rotating at 158 rpm.MethodologyThe rotation of the blades is modeled using the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) approach, also known as frame motion. In this method, the fluid region surrounding the blades is assigned a rotational motion, while the blades themselves are held stationary relative to that rotating frame — effectively reproducing the rotational flow field around the runner without physically moving the mesh.The geometry was built in Design Modeler and consists of two main components: fixed walls carrying stationary vanes at fixed angles, and moving walls carrying the rotating vanes.Meshing was performed in ANSYS Meshing using an unstructured grid of 4,653,160 elements, with local refinement applied near the blades to better capture the flow behavior in these critical regions.ConclusionOn completion of the solution, two- and three-dimensional contours of pressure, velocity, path lines, and velocity vectors were extracted. As expected, the peak velocity occurs in the immediate vicinity of the rotating blades. A full set of performance results can be derived from the simulation, including a pressure drop of approximately 2.3 × 10³ Pa across the turbine.

DescriptionThis project simulates a Turgo turbine using ANSYS Fluent, with water flowing at a velocity of 4 m/s as it passes through the turbine. A Turgo turbine is a type of impulse water turbine — highly efficient and compact, which makes it well suited to many hydroelectric applications, particularly under high-head conditions.The Turgo turbine is distinguished by its unique design and operating principle. Unlike many other turbines, it uses the kinetic energy of a water jet directed onto its blades to generate rotational motion, which is then converted into electrical energy — a process central to the operation of hydroelectric power plants.The blades were drawn in SOLIDWORKS at a specific angle and distance from the central axis and then imported into Design Modeler for the integrated blade design. Around the turbine blades, a dedicated cylindrical region is created to represent the circulating water flow, while a rectangular cuboid domain is designed to serve as the space for the free water flow. Meshing was performed in ANSYS Meshing using an unstructured grid; to improve accuracy, the Tetrahedrons method was used, giving an element count of 4,344,106.MethodologyThe Mesh Motion (Sliding Mesh) technique is used to simulate the rotation of the turbine blades. Accordingly, the cylindrical region is assigned a mesh-motion condition with a rotational speed of 150 rpm about the central horizontal axis of the turbine. Because the sliding-mesh approach physically rotates the mesh in time, it captures the true transient interaction between the moving blades and the incoming water jet.The realizable k-epsilon model is selected to represent the turbulence of the flow, and the effect of gravity is included in the Z direction at −9.81 m/s².ConclusionOn completion of the solution, two- and three-dimensional results for pressure, velocity, and velocity vectors were obtained. As expected, the maximum velocity occurs in the immediate vicinity of the rotating blades. A full set of performance quantities can be extracted from the simulation, including a pressure drop of approximately 4.979 × 10⁴ Pa across the turbine.Overall, the study demonstrates how the water jet strikes the Turgo blades and drives their rotation, and how the Mesh Motion (Sliding Mesh) technique reproduces this moving-blade behavior to reveal the turbine's hydrodynamic performance.