Application Tutorial 7.

1b:
Diffuser

Fundamentals and Application of CFD

Master’s
Master’s DegreeDegree
ininNumerical
Numerical Simulation in Engineering
Simulation with Ansys with Ansys
in Engineering
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1Universidad Politécnica de Madrid - Ansys 12th EDITION
 Introduction
• Workshop Description:
– Turbulent Flow Through a Planar Asymmetric Diffuser is simulated.
• Learning Aims:
– The purpose of this tutorial is to provide guidelines and recommendations for solving a CFD problem
which includes:
– using the pseudo-transient solver and high order term relaxation.
– comparing the results with experimental data.
– Performing a precursor calculation in a small periodic domain to obtain fully developed inlet flow and
turbulence profiles.
• Learning Objectives:
– To understand how to the mesh refinement and the turbulence modelling could influence the CFD results
in term of accuracy of the solver.

At that stage of the Module, this tutorial assumes that you are familiar
with the Fluent interface and you have a good understanding of the basic
setup and solution procedures. Some steps will not be shown explicitly.

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 Problem Description
• The geometrical description of the 2D asymmetric plane diffuser is shown in below. The origin of the x-axis
is located at the intersection of the tangents to the straight and inclined walls at the beginning of the
asymmetric expansion. The y-axis originates from the bottom wall of the downstream channel.

• The problem is to simulate the flow through an asymmetric plane diffuser with a Reynolds number Re =
20000. The Reynolds number is based on the centerline velocity and the channel height at the inlet.

• The complete experimental results were obtained by Buice and Eaton [1]. This is a classical test case for
flows dominated by adverse pressure gradient and boundary-layer separation.

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 Contents
• Generating Inlet Profiles with a Precursor Calculation

• Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

– Sensitivity to turbulence modelling

• Grid Independence Study

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 Generating Inlet Profiles with a Precursor
Calculation
• In order to obtain a fully-developed channel flow at the diffuser inlet, you can either extend the channel
sufficiently far in the upstream direction, or separately compute a fully-developed channel flow (at the
same Reynolds number) using the same turbulence model(s) to be used for the simulation of the full
geometry.

• The profiles computed by the periodic model will be used for the inlet boundary condition in the full
geometry. Take the latter approach in this tutorial to minimize the size of the domain and CPU time.

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 Start Ansys Fluent (Stand-alone)
Generating Inlet Profiles with a Precursor Calculation

• Launch Fluent from the Start Menu

• Start Menu > Ansys > Fluid Dynamics > Fluent
– Select “Solution”, “2D” and “Display Mesh After Reading”.
– Select “Double Precision”.
– Select the working directory you are using on your machine.
• Read the mesh file, test-periodic.msh (from startup folder)
• Check the mesh. Mesh > Check
• Models
• Cases will be run with 2 turbulence models, realizable k-epsilon
and SST. Begin by choosing the realizable k-epsilon model.
• Setup > Models > Viscous
– Enable k-epsilon (2 eqn) under Model
– Enable Realizable under k-epsilon Model and
Enhanced Enhanced Wall Treatment under Near-Wall
Treatment
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 Set-up
Generating Inlet Profiles with a Precursor Calculation

• Materials
• The fluid is standard air with constant density,
so there is no need to visit the materials panel.

• Boundary Conditions
• Set the periodic conditions by clicking the
button reading “Periodic Conditions…”
below the list of
boundary zones
• Enter 0.314 kg/s

• Solution
• Solution > Solution Methods
– The panel will be populated
as shown here

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 Init and Run
Generating Inlet Profiles with a Precursor Calculation

• Monitors
• In the Residual Monitors panel, use the
drop-down list to change Convergence
Criterion to None.
• Set up a surface monitor for shear stress at
walls.

• Initialization
• Select “Standard Initialization”
• Press Initialize
• Run calculations
• Set the reporting interval to 100
• This is a very small case and therefore reporting
every iteration will significantly increase the
calculation time
• Run 1500 iterations
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 Write profiles
Generating Inlet Profiles with a Precursor Calculation

• Profiles
• Save the case and data file
• Select File > Write > Profile. Choose “periodic.1”
from the list of boundaries and x-velocity, turbulent
kinetic energy and turbulent dissipation rate.
• Click “Write…” and save the file as “channel-rke-
profile.prof”.

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 SST Turbulence Model
Generating Inlet Profiles with a Precursor Calculation

• SST k-w model

– The SST model uses the specific dissipation rate, w, rather than the turbulent dissipation rate, e. It would
be possible to convert between these two variables using a hand calculation and manually create a new
profile, but as the two different turbulence models will also predict slightly different turbulent kinetic
energy profiles, it is a good idea to calculate the solution for the periodic case using the SST model and
write the profiles from the solution.
• Enable the SST model in the Viscous Model panel
• Then return to the Solution Methods panel and set the spatial discretization for the specific dissipation
rate to second order upwind.
• See next slide...

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 SST Turbulence Model
Generating Inlet Profiles with a Precursor Calculation

• Run 1500 additional iterations

• Write profiles as described in the previous step, except here, be careful to select “Specific Dissipation Rate
(Omega)”. The name of the saved file should be “channel-sst-profile.prof”
• Save Case&Data and Close Fluent

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 Start Ansys Fluent (Stand-alone)
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• Launch Fluent from the Start Menu

• Start Menu > Ansys > Fluid Dynamics > Fluent
– Select “2D” and “Display Mesh After Reading”
– Select “Double Precision”
– Select the working directory you are using on your machine

• Read the mesh file, asymmetric-scaled.msh (from startup folder).

• Models
• Activate the realizable k-epsilon turbulence model with Enhanced Wall Treatment, as shown before.

• Materials
The fluid is standard air with constant density, so there is no need to visit the materials panel.

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 Set-up
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• Boundary Conditions
• Click on Boundary Conditions in the navigation pane on the left of the GUI.
• Below the boundary conditions panel is a button labeled “Profiles….”. Click this button, then click
“Read…” on the Profiles panel and select the file “channel-rke-profile.prof” created before. The panel
will be populated as shown in the figure.
• Apply boundary conditions for inlet_v

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 Set-up
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• Boundary Conditions
• Apply boundary conditions for outlet

• Solutions Methods
• Same as before

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 Init
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• Monitors
• In the Residual Monitors panel, change the value of
“Absolute Criteria” from .001 to 10-6 for all equations.
• Set up a surface monitor for shear stress at walls

• Initialization
• Select “Hybrid Initialization”
• Click “More Settings”
• Click the “Turbulence Settings” tab
• Unselect “Averaged Turbulent Parameters” and enter the
values shown in the panel (4 and 40)
– They are approximately the same as the average values
computed before for the channel upstream of the
diffuser section.
• Click “Initialize”

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 Custom Field Functions
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• In the upper menu: User-Defined > Field Functions > Custom…

• Select Mesh... and X-Coordinate in the Field Functions drop-down list and click Select.
• Click the buttons X (X-Coordinate, then Select), / and “.1” in a sequence in the Custom Field Function
Calculator Pad
• Specify x-by-h as the New Function Name and click Define.
• Close the panel.

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 Run calculation
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser
• Run calculation
• Keep all of the default options in the Pseudo Time Settings section of the panel. Start the calculations
by requesting 10 iterations.
• Use the TUI command /solve/report-plots/clear-data to reset the surface monitor data.
(Or you can also clear the report plot data by navigating to: (In Outline View) Solution > Monitors > Report Plots. RMB on the specific Report Plot and click
“Clear Data”

• Request another 400 iterations. The solution will reach the residual criteria. Write Case&Data (as asd-
rke-diffuser-final).

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 Custom Field Functions
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• Change the reference values

• Change the Velocity value to 2.56 and the Length value to
0.1 to be consistent with experimental data (see
reference).
• Close the panel.

• Define a new custom field function as shown below.

This will make the comparison of the skin friction coefficient on the
lower wall more convenient.

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 Post-processing
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• Plot the initial results

• Click Plots in the navigation panel on the left of the GUI and then XY plots in the center panel. Click Set
Up… to define the plot output.
• Deselect Node Values and Position on X Axis under Options.
• Select Custom Field Functions... and Skin Friction Coefficient under Y Axis Function.
• Select Custom Field Functions... and x-by-h under X Axis Function.
• Click Load File... and select the cf top.xy file (startup folder) and click OK.

If the plots look distorted,

select the Node Values

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 Post-processing
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser
• Change the line and symbol style for Curve
• Click on Curves... in the Solution XY Plot panel
and enter values as shown below. Click
Apply and close the panel.
• Make the changes as shown in the panel.
• Click Apply and close
• Select wall_top under Surfaces and
click Plot.
• Repeat the same procedure for bottom wall by loading file cf bot and selecting wall
bottom.
• Save Case&Data

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 SST
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• In the Viscous Model panel, select the SST k-omega

• Select Boundary Conditions in the navigation pane on the left of the GUI. Click Profiles…, then Delete,
then Read and select “channel-sst-profile.prof”. Close the panel.
• Open the boundary conditions panel for inlet_v and select “periodic.1 specific-diss-rate” as the
boundary condition for the specific dissipation rate.
• Click Solution Methods in the navigation pane on the left of the GUI. Check the spatial discretization is
set for turbulent kinetic energy and specific dissipation rate to “Second Order Upwind”. Keep all the
other settings.
• Run Calculation (request another 400 iterations)
• The solution will converge in less than 400 iterations.
• Save the case and data file (asd-sst-diffuser-final).

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 Post-processing
Calculating Flow in the Planar Diffuser

• Plot the skin friction on the top and bottom wall for the SST results
Remember the realizable k-epsilon Cf predictions along the top wall are substantially different (lower) than the
experimental. The main reason for the failure is due the fact that it does not correctly predict the size of the
separation/recirculation zone along the inclined wall.
On the other hand, SST k-ω is the only turbulence model among all the two-equation turbulence models which
can successfully capture the recirculation zone. SST k-ω model’s prediction of Cf on the top wall is good, but
along the bottom wall it predicts the flow separates slightly upstream of the actual separation point.

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 Mesh sensitivity
Grid Independence Study

• To test whether the converged results (from the SST k-ω model) obtained so far are independent of the grid
resolution, you can either uniformly double the total cell count, or use the grid adaption feature of the
solver to achieve the objective more efficiently.

• Grid independence is attained when further mesh refinement yields only small and insignificant changes in
the solution fields. Different mesh adaption criteria could be considered (region, gradient,…), but here we
choose to adapt a region extending slightly upstream and slightly downstream of the separated flow region.

• First, save the case and data before attempting any adaption since any change is irreversible.

• Now, we will identify the separated flow region by creating an iso-surface where the x-velocity is equal to
zero.

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 Flow Separation
Grid Independence Study

• Surface > Create > Iso-Surface

• Select Velocity, X-Velocity, click Compute, enter
“xvel=0 “for the surface name and click Create.
• Show contours of X-Velocity, using the Draw
Mesh option in the contour display panel to show
the recirculation zone (xvel=0 surface).
• Calculate the maximum x-coordinate of the iso-
surface (~2.8m)

• There are other ways to identify the downstream end

of the recirculation zone, such as looking where the
shear stress changes sign on the bottom wall, but the
purpose here is simply to identify an appropriate region
for grid adaption, so the most accurate method is not
required.

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 Mesh Adaption
Grid Independence Study
• Select the minimum and maximum coordinates
as shown in the picture. The x-values
correspond to 0.15 m upstream of the diffuser
section and downstream of the recirculation
zone.
• Click Display Options…, then Draw Mesh and Filled, then click OK
and finally Display. The region of cells to be adapted is shown in
the figure below. It is advisable to always visually confirm the
location of the adaption region.
• Click Adapt in the Manual Mesh Adaption

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 Run calculation Increase the time scale successively up
Grid Independence Study to 1 to ensure smooth convergence

• Run calculation
• Lower the timescale factor (0.1) and continue the
iterating until convergence.
• Save the case and data files
(asd-sst-diffuser-adapt-final).
• Plot the results

• It can be seen that there are no detectable changes

from the previously obtained results so the converged
solution for this case appears to be grid-independent.
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 Summary
• In this tutorial, you performed a simulation of steady-state turbulent flow through an asymmetric, planar
diffuser by using the realizable k-ε model. The calculated skin friction coefficients (Cf ) at the top and bottom
of the diffuser walls were compared with experimental data reported by Buice and Eaton.

• Between the two-equation turbulence models, only the SST k-ω model gives reasonable predictions of the
skin friction and the recirculation zone.

• You have also learned how to use Fluent´s regional grid adaption feature to test whether or not the
calculation is grid independent, without having to uniformly double up the cell count in the whole flow
domain.

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 References
• C.U. Buice and J.K. Eaton. Experimental investigation of flow through an asymmetric plane diffuser.
Technical Report No. TSD-107, Thermosciences Division, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford
University, Stanford, CA, USA, August 1997.

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