Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

1. Problem Specification

Consider air flowing at high-speed through a convergent-divergent nozzle having a circular cross-
sectional area, A, that varies with axial distance from the throat, x, according to the formula
A = 0.1 + x2; -0.5 < x < 0.5
where A is in square meters and x is in meters. The stagnation pressure po at the inlet is 101,325
Pa. The stagnation temperature To at the inlet is 300 K. The static pressure p at the exit is 3,738.9
Pa. We will calculate the Mach number, pressure and temperature distribution in the nozzle using
FLUENT and compare the solution to quasi-1D nozzle flow results. The Reynolds number for this
high-speed flow is large. So we expect viscous effects to be confined to a small region close to the
wall. So it is reasonable to model the flow as inviscid.

2. Pre-Analysis & Start-Up

2.1 Hand Calculations
In quasi - one dimensional flow for this converging diverging nozzle, we expect that the Mach
number at the inlet will be subsonic and accelerating until at the minimum nozzle area (the throat)
the flow becomes sonic with M = 1. At that point, we expect that since the nozzle starts to diverge
the flow will continue accelerating until at the exit, the flow continues as supersonic. We get to
this result via the area velocity relation:

© 2016 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. Page 1 of 9

 Tutorial: Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

2.2 Open ANSYS Workbench

We are ready to do a simulation in ANSYS Workbench! Open ANSYS Workbench by going to
Start > ANSYS > Workbench. This will open the start up screen seen as seen below

2.3 Setup Project

To begin, we need to tell ANSYS what kind of simulation we are doing. If you look to the left of
the start up window, you will see the Toolbox Window. Take a look through the different
selections. We will be using FLUENT to complete the simulation. Load the Fluid Flow
(FLUENT) box by dragging and dropping it into the Project Schematic.

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 Tutorial: Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

Right click the top box of the project schematic and go to Rename, and
name the project Compressible Flow in a Nozzle.You are ready to create the geometry for the
simulation.

3. Geometry
We only need to model half of the nozzle cross-section because it can be solved using the
axisymmetric solver in FLUENT. The 2D axisymmetric geometry has 4 edges; we will need to
import a coordinate file to create the diverging-converging nozzle wall. Please download the
coordinates file and make sure you understand the content before you proceed to the video.
download coordinates file here

3.1 Coordinates File

You should see five columns of data in the coordinates file.
 The first column is the Group number . The coordinates data are assigned to groups to
distinguish edges.
 The second column is the Group ID . Each set of coordinate needs to be assigned an ID
so they can be imported in the correct order.

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 Tutorial: Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

 The third column is the x coordinate . It varies from -0.5 to 0.5 , as shown in the problem
statement.
 The fourth column is the y coordinate . The y coordinate (radial coordinate) can be
written as the radius of the nozzle in terms of nozzle cross section area: A = pi*r^2.
 The last column is the z coordinate . Although we are working with a 2D model, the tool
we will use to import the coordinates requires coordinates in all three directions. We can
conveniently set the z coordinates to 0 .
The coordinates in the text file need to be grouped in a way that the end coordinate of a group
must be the start coordinate of the next group. For instance, the end coordinate of group 1 is (0.5
0.333778669, 0) is the same as the start coordinate of group 2.

3.2 Create the Geometry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39bzrJZJIMg#action=share
Summary of the above video:
1. Drag Fluid Flow (FLUENT) to the Project Schematic
a. Rename it 2D Nozzle
2. Right click on Geometry > Properties
a. Analysis Type > 2D
3. Double click on Geometry to open up Design Modeler
4. Select Meters as Units
5. Go to Top Menu, click on Concept > 3D curve
a. For Coordinate File > Browse and select nozzle coordinates.txt
6. Click on the Zoom to Fit icon
7. Click on Concept > Surfaces (Edges)
a. Click on all four edges
8. Generate
Note that while following the video above, you can select the 4 edges to create a surface in two
ways:
1. By holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the 4 edges in turn.

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 Tutorial: Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

2. By "painting" over the 4 edges i.e. dragging the left mouse button over the four edges.
This feature is called paint select.

3.3 Suppress line bodies

You need to suppress the line bodies before moving on, otherwise you might get an error later.
Right click on each line body and select Suppress Body as shown below. Then, save your project
before moving to the next step.

4. Mesh
The following video will show you how the mesh was created:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IzeXyxbGPM#action=share
Summary of the above video:
1. Right click on Mesh > Insert > Mapped Face Meshing
2. Click on face of the geometry > Apply
3. Right click on Mesh > Insert > Facing
4. Click on Select Body icon > click on geometry > Apply
5. Under Element Size enter 0.025 m
6. Generate
After creating the surface, name each of the edges of the surface. Do this by using the edge
selection tool, right clicking on the line that you want to name, the left clicking this same line,

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 Tutorial: Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

selecting 'Named Selections' and typing in your desired name, then click the 'Generate' symbol to
generate that named selection. You will want to name the pressure inlet, the outlet, the nozzle
wall, and the axis.

5. Physics Setup
The following video will walk you through specifying the governing equations and boundary
conditions for our analysis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaoSvMt23hY#action=share
The gauge total pressure at the inlet boundary is the total (stagnation ) pressure. This value is
taken as is. The supersonic/initial gauge pressure is an initial guess for the static pressure at the
inlet. This value will get updated if the flow at the inlet is subsonic. This value will not get
updated if the inlet velocity is supersonic since disturbances cannot propagate upstream in this
case. In our problem, the inlet velocity is going to be subsonic, so the static pressure at the inlet
will get updated. You just need to make sure you provide a reasonable initial guess for the static
pressure so that the iterations converge. This is illustrated in the figure below.

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 Tutorial: Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

Keep in mind that all pressures you enter are gauge: Absolute pressure = Gauge pressure +
Reference pressure. The reference pressure is set to zero under "Operating conditions" in the
above video . So, there is no difference between gauge and absolute pressures. This is a good
idea for highly compressible flows where one gets significant variation in pressure across the
domain. In contrast, for low speed flows, where absolute pressure variation might not be
significant, giving a reasonable reference pressure will ensure that gauge pressure variations are
still significant and minimize rounds-off errors (essentially you avoid having to take small
differences of large numbers).
Note: If using a different fluid than air, you must assign the material under the cell zone
conditions. Do this by going to Cell Zone Conditions, clicking on 'surface body', selecting the
material name that you want, and click OK.

6. Numerical Solution
The following video will walk you through setting up the solution for our analysis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5QLgOdRxvg#action=share
Summary of the Above Video:
1. Under Solution Methods > Spatial Discretization
a. Set Gradient to Least Squares Based
b. Set Flow to Second Order Upwing
2. Under Solution > Monitors
a. Residuals
i. Set all Residual Convergence Criteria to 1e-6
3. Under Solution > Solution Initialization
a. Select Standard Initialization > Compute from Inlet
4. Under Run Calculation
a. Set Number of Iterations to 150
b. Calculate

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 Tutorial: Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

7. Numerical Results
7.1 Post-processing using CFD Post
The following video shows you how to make a plot of Mach no. variation along the axis & wall
and compare to the quasi-1D analytical solution. Before proceeding to the video, download
this csv file which contains Mach no. vs. x obtained from the quasi-1D solution. Place the csv file
in your working folder with the main .wbpj file.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzJDISEPuf0#action=share
Below is our plot generated in CFD Post.

7.2 Post-processing using the FLUENT Post-Processor

The following video will walk you through looking at the results of the analysis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8djqPilnhk#action=share
In order to make plots comparing the Fluent results with the corresponding analytical results, it is
recommended that you export the data from FLUENT into Excel or MATLAB and make the plots

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 Tutorial: Compressible Flow in a Nozzle

in Excel or MATLAB. You can export data in a FLUENT "XY Plot" into a text file using the Write
to file option. The following video walks you through the process of exporting the Mach number
variation along x to a text file and reading in the Mach number values into Excel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43wSOmLxiZ8#action=share

© 2016 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. Page 9 of 9