COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS TUTORIAL 7

Ramon Silverio de Almeida

SID: 314000119

1. PROBLEM AND SETTINGS
1.1 Problem
This assignment aims to obtain the solution for a flow over a sphere, which has a radius of 0.01 m. The
fluid of the flow is air at standard temperature and pressure, with inlet velocity of 0.1 m/s.
1.2 Domain
Firstly, it was determined the domain size. In order to obtain a good result, where the walls would not
cause a considerable influence in the flow over the sphere, it was used a domain with the walls in a distance
from the spheres center of 10 times the spheres radius. The domain has height = 0.2 m, depth = 0.2 m and
length = 0.4 m. The figure below illustrates the domain.


Figure 1. Domain.
1.3 Solver Settings
Firstly it was determined the solution model, for this the Reynolds numbers for the internal (duct flow)
and external (over sphere) flows were calculated, the results obtained were Re
internal
= 685 and Re
internal
= 134.
Based on that it can be affirmed that it is a laminar flow, therefore it was used the Viscous-Laminar model.
With regard to the spatial discretization scheme, the second order was used, as it was seen in the
previous tutorials that it provides a more accurate solution.
1.4 Grid Size and Residuals
Regarding the grid size, two parameters were analysed: boundary layer inflation and the face meshing
(mesh around the sphere). In order to compare the influence of the grid, the drag force was calculated for each
combination and then compared.
When it comes to the boundary layer inflation it was seen that as the number of layers increased the drag
coefficient was requiring a smaller residual and therefore more computational time, to achieve convergence.
From the range of layers tested (5, 10, 20 and 40), the configuration with 10 layers was selected as the drag
coefficient could achieve convergence with residual of 10
-6
.
In order to select the residual, the grid size of the face meshing was fixed as 0.005 m and the number of
layer was fixed as 10, and a range of residuals was tested and the drag coefficient calculated. The results
obtained are as follows:
Table 1 Drag Coefficient for different residuals
Residual Drag Coefficient
1.00E-03 0.95692
1.00E-04 0.94580
1.00E-05 0.94528
1.00E-06 0.94525
1.00E-07 0.94525

Based on the table 1, it can be concluded that the residual of 10
-6
provides a result with good accuracy
and does not require a considerable computational time as the residual of 10
-7
. Therefore, the residual fixed for
the other analyses is 10
-6
.
Finally the grid size of the face meshing was tested, and the results are presented in the table below:
Table 2 Drag Coefficient for different face meshing
Face Meshing Drag Coefficient
5.00E-03 0.94176
2.50E-03 0.93994
1.25E-03 0.93908
6.25E-04 0.93890

From table 2 it is clear that an accurate solution was obtained, for as the face meshing decreases the drag
coefficient does not suffer a considerable change. The grid size selected to obtain the results for the flow was
1.2510
-3
, because it provides a solution close enough to the finer grid and does not require a considerable high
computational time.
After all the analyses, the grid defined to obtain the results is: number of layers in the boundary layer
inflation = 10 and grid size in the face meshing = 1.2510
-3
and a residual of 10
-6
. The following figures
illustrate the grid used in the flow.
Figure 2 Grid used in the flow.

Figure 3 Grid around the sphere.


1.5 Result Comparison
The result obtained for the drag coefficient was also compared with experimental results of flows around
spheres in order to verify if the solution obtained is accurate. The following figure presents the experimental
result of the drag coefficient for a sphere with different Reynolds.

Figure 4 Drag Coefficient for a smooth sphere for different Reynolds numbers. Retrieved from Fox,R. W. and McDonald, A. T.,
Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, 8
th
ed., John Wiley & Sons 2011.
As it was presented in the section 1.3, the Reynolds number for the flow over the sphere is 134, and
from the Fig. 4 the drag coefficient for this Reynolds is 0.9~1.0 which is consistent with the result obtained with
the simulation.





2. RESULTS
With the parameters established, the following results were obtained.

Figure 5 Flow Pathlines and Pressure Contour.
From Fig. 5 it is clear the recirculation zone created behind the sphere, and the difference of the pressure
in the front and in the back of the sphere which generate the drag coefficient.

Figure 6 Velocity Vectors.
From Fig. 6 is possible to see the vectors behind the sphere with different direction of the inlet flow,
indicating the recirculation.
Recirculation
Zones