Workshop 02

Using the Discrete Phase Model (DPM)

16.0 Release

Introduction to ANSYS Fluent

1 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. February 26, 2015 Release 16.0

 Introduction
Workshop Description:
This workshop shows how to use the Discrete Phase Model (DPM) within Fluent. In the previous
workshop we simulated the flow of a single-phase fluid within a pipe T-piece. This workshop will use
the same T-piece geometry. The DPM enables us to compute the trajectories of a stream of particles /
droplets, based on their density and diameter.
Learning Aims:
This workshop will cover how to set up and run a DPM simulation:
– defining particle materials – including turbulent (stochastic) effects
– injecting particles into the domain – predicting where erosion will occur
– use either constant or a distribution profile – for the particle diameter
Learning Objectives:
To understand how Fluent can be used to solve for the flow of a discrete phase, and the key controls
used to produce a reliable result.

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 Simulation to be performed
The pipe simulated in workshop 1 is to be fitted in a
petrochemicals site. The working fluid will be
propane, and upstream some water droplets are
injected into the pipe (this is done to dissolve any
salts in the gas stream, though that process is not
considered here)

• This simulation will consider how these water

droplets are carried by the gas flow, and to what
extent they impact on the pipe wall

• We will use a range of droplet sizes, and predict

where erosion (or in practice, corrosion) may
occur on the pipe wall

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 Loading a Mesh and starting Fluent
We suggest you start a fresh workbench project
for this, although the starting point will be the
model built in workshop 1

• Start a new workbench session

• Drag a Fluent component system onto the project
• Right-click on ‘Setup’, and select Import Fluent Case,
and Browse
• Browse to and select the file
“tpiece_model_from_ws1.cas.gz”
• Save the Workbench project as "WS02-Discrete-
Phase"
• Double-click ‘Setup’ in Cell A2 to start the Fluent
Launcher
• Click OK on the Fluent Launcher screen
– If HPC licenses are available, launch Fluent in parallel
with 2 or 4 processes

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 Setup of flow field
We know the mesh is OK (we checked it for Workshop 1). However we need to change the working fluid
to Propane
• Expand the Materials branch in the tree, then expand Fluid, right click on either "air" (as shown) or "water-liquid"
and select "Edit..."
– click ‘Fluent Database...’ to open the Fluent Database Materials panel (next page)

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 Select Materials
The Fluid Materials list is very long. The following trick can help locate materials more easily. It is also
possible just to use the slider bar at the right of the list, but the method shown here is usually faster.

Left click on any item in the list to On your keyboard, type the first letter of Use the keyboard arrows to scroll down to
highlight it. Here it is the first item in the the material you are looking for, in this the propane entry. On some computers the
list but it could be any item. case "p". mouse wheel might also work.

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 Assigning Materials
• Setup > Materials
– click on ‘air’ then delete This will work, since air is not
currently in use
– click on ‘water-liquid’ then delete This will fail, since
water is still in use by the cell zone

• Cell Zone Conditions > ‘fluid’ > Edit

– In the pull-down list next to Material Name, change
from ‘water’ to ‘propane’, then OK

• Revisit the Materials setup, and try again to delete

‘water-liquid’ This will now be possible

A common mistake is to merely create the new fluid material, and not assign it to the cell zone. Fluent will still use
the default material in the cell zones. Since you cannot delete a material that is in use, this step presents an useful
check (especially in complex models). If the unwanted materials are still in use somewhere you cannot delete them.

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 Obtaining new flow field
All settings (Solution Methods and Solution Controls) are to remain unchanged from the first workshop
• Solution Initialization > Hybrid Initialization > Initialize
There might be a warning following initialization. If so, it is only
• Run Calculation > 150 iterations > Calculate a warning and you can proceed with running the calculation.

The computation takes about 1 minute, and you should see convergence before 150 iterations are
reached. Save the results before proceeding to the next step.

Note that in addition to the

residuals reaching the
convergence criteria, the
solution monitors no longer
change. If the lines in these
graphs were not flat, it
would be necessary to
continue iterating.

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 Basic DPM setup [1]
• Expand the Models branch in the tree, expand the Discrete Phase branch under Models and double click
"Injections"
• In the Injections panel, select ‘Create’

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 Basic DPM setup [2]
• Set up a new injection as follows:
– Set injection type to ‘surface’
– Pick surface ‘inlet-z’
– Keep default material ‘anthracite’
– Keep default diameter ‘uniform’ Only when we have
– X-Velocity 0 (m/s)
– Y-Velocity 0 (m/s)
– Z-Velocity -1 (m/s)
– Diameter 1e-04 (m)
– Temperature 90 (c)
– Total Flow Rate 1 (kg/s)
– Tick ‘Scale Flow Rate by Face Area’
– Select ‘OK’ to close this window
– ‘Close’ the Injections Window
set up a DPM
injection can we get
access to define the
particle material. We
will change this on
the next slide.
There are many ways to introduce DPM
particles (parcels). Although here we use
a boundary surface present in the
geometry, we could choose to inject at
XYZ point co-ordinates anywhere within
the model.

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 Defining DPM materials
• Materials > Inert Particle > anthracite > Edit
Defining an injection means we can now set up the material properties for the droplets
• Change the name from ‘anthracite’ to ‘water-droplets’
• Change the Density to 1000 kg/m^3
• Click change/create, then answer ‘Yes’

If we selected ‘No’ then we would have both

anthracite and water-droplets in the model.
Selecting ‘Yes’ overwrites so we just have
water-droplets present. The injection defined
on the last slide will automatically take this
new material instead of anthracite.

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 First display of particle tracks [1]
In its simplest form, the DPM can just be used
as a post-processing exercise (the coupling is
one-way between the continuous (propane)
phase and the droplets). We can go straight
to a post-processing action. When we display
the particle tracks, the solver computes how
these particles (of this diameter, density etc)
are carried by the flow.
• In the tree expand Results, then Graphics, then
double click Particle Tracks
• Select ‘Draw Mesh’, then in the pop-up window:
– select ‘Edges’, Edge Type ‘Outline’
– Select all surfaces except interior-fluid
– ‘Display’, then close just the ‘Mesh display’ window

If you do not see the pipe outline on screen,

then you need to use the pull-down panel
immediately above the graphic window, and
change it from the Convergence History plots
to ‘Mesh’

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 First display of particle tracks [2]
• On the ‘Particle Tracks’ window, select
– Color by Particle Variables > Particle Diameter
– Pick the injection ‘injection-0’
– Click ‘Display’
– Observe also the bottom line of the TUI window. You
should see:
– Number tracked 158
– Number escaped 158
– This will be discussed next....

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 Discussion on DPM [1]
• In this example, Fluent has released one droplet from each face on the ‘inlet-z’ boundary. There are 158 faces in
the mesh here, hence 158 trajectories.
– Each droplet has a diameter of 1x10-4 m, and a density of 1000 kg/m3
– Therefore each droplet has a mass of 5.2x10-10 kg (4/3 rpr3)
– It is assumed that any droplet released from the same location with the same conditions will follow the same trajectory
– Our mass flow rate is 1 kg/s
– So each of the 158 droplet trajectories computed is used to represent 1.2x107 actual droplets/sec 1/(5.2x10-10x158)

• The droplet (or particle) progresses through the domain through a large number of small steps. At each step, the
solver computes the force balance acting on a single droplet (diameter 1x10-4 m) – hence considering the drag
with the surrounding fluid, droplet inertia, and if applicable gravity. The mass transported is that of all the droplets
in that stream (1.2x107 droplets/sec).

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 Discussion on DPM [2]
• The coupling of the droplet (DPM) motion with that of the continuous phase can either be one-way or two-way
coupled. The present example is one-way coupled
– By this we mean that the fluid affects the momentum / energy of the DPM
– But the surrounding fluid flow (propane) remains unaffected by the momentum / energy exchange with the DPM
– For this reason, we can use the DPM as a post-processing exercise, and quickly compute the particle solution

• If required, two-way coupled behavior can be enabled by setting ‘Interaction with Continuous Phase’ on the DPM
set-up panel
– One would then need to perform additional iterations of the (propane) flow field to convergence
– It is not usually necessary to solve the DPM at every flow iteration Typically the DPM field needs updating every 5-10
flow iterations

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 Using a range of droplet sizes
So far we have looked at droplets of a uniform
size. Next we will define a range of diameters
• Define > Injections
– Highlight ‘injection-0’ then ‘Set’
– Change Diameter-Distribution
to ‘Rosin-Rammler’
– Set the following values:
• Min diameter 1e-04 (m)
• Max diameter 5e-04 (m)
• Mean diameter 4e-04 (m)
– All other values should still be
Drag slider bar to bottom to
the same as set previously make diameter inputs visible.
– Observe that the default is to
have Number of Diameters = 10
– Click ‘OK’

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 Trajectories of distributed sized droplets
• In the ‘Particle Tracks’ panel, select
– Color by > Particle Variables... > Particle Diameter
– Pick the injection ‘injection-0’
– Click ‘Display’
– Observe also the bottom line of the TUI window. You
should see:
• Number tracked 1580 Recall we asked
for a distribution
• Number escaped 1580
of 10 diameters,
and so we now
have 10 x 158
trajectories being
computed.

Note how the larger droplet sizes have

not made it round the bend, and have
impacted on the pipe wall.

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 Viewing the range of sizes used [1]
To plot the size distribution used:
• Reports > Discrete Phase > Sample > Set Up...
• Pick boundary ‘Outlet’, and release from ‘injection-
0’, then ‘Compute’
• All droplets currently make it to the outlet. This
action will write to disk a file called ‘outlet.dpm’ that
will record the profile of droplets at this outlet
boundary
• Reports > Discrete Phase > Histogram > Set Up...
• Select ‘Read’ then pick the file just saved
(outlet.dpm)
• Select sample ‘Outlet’, Variable ‘diameter’ and
weight ‘mass-flow’
• Click Axes..., set precision to 5, Apply
• Select ‘Plot’

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 Viewing the range of sizes used [2]
The Rosin-Rammler Diameter distribution is shown in the histogram. Recall the minimum size was 1x10-
4m and the maximum 5x10-4m. Since we specified a mean diameter of 4x10-4m, the histogram is
weighted towards the larger-sized droplets. Save the project after viewing the histogram plot.

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 Trapping droplets on the wall
By default when DPM droplets/particles hit a wall they are reflected off. In this case we want to say
that water droplets that impact on the wall will remain there and not bounce off.
• Boundary conditions > ‘wall-fluid’ > Edit
• On the ‘DPM’ tab, set the Type to ‘trap’
• Click ‘OK’

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 Trajectories with no reflection on walls
• In the ‘Particle Tracks’ panel, select
– Color by > Particle Variables... > Particle Diameter
– Pick the injection ‘injection-0’
– Click ‘Display’
– Observe also the bottom line of the TUI window. You
should see:
• Number tracked 1580 Now ca. 46% of the water
• Number escaped 857 droplets impact on the wall
and are removed from the
• Number trapped 723
simulation.
• Number incomplete 0
It is very important to keep an eye on these numbers. Fluent
will simulate a finite number of steps (default 500) for each
particle stream. If this is not enough, there may be a significant
number ‘incomplete’, in which case the values in Models >
Discrete Phase need changing.
In some flows the particles may naturally become stuck in a
recirculation region, and therefore ‘incomplete’ is appropriate.

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 Including turbulent effects
This flow is turbulent, which will impart a random motion on the water droplets. However, our flow
solution does not resolve all the small-scale turbulent eddies in the flow. The way we resolve this is to
use stochastic tracking. Put simply a number (in this case 10) of particle streams that are released from
the same point. Each one is given a random ‘kick’ in each grid cell based on the turbulent intensity. This
will indicate how turbulence will modify the trajectories.

• Define > Injections

• Highlight ‘injection-0’ then ‘Set’
• Select ‘Turbulent Dispersion’ tab
• Tick ‘Discrete Random Walk Model’
• Set number of tries to 10
• OK

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 Trajectories with turbulent effects
• In the ‘Particle Tracks’ panel, select
– Color by > Particle Variables... > Particle Diameter
We have just set 10 ‘tries’ for the turbulent tracking, so we
– Pick the injection ‘injection-0’ now track 10x the number of particle trajectories (previously
– Click ‘Display’ This will take noticeably longer than 1580).
before
– Observe also the bottom line of the TUI window. You
should see 15800 totally tracked particles, a part of
them will be incomplete.

The number of incomplete particles can be reduced by increasing the ‘Max. Number of
Steps’ in the ‘Discrete Phase Model’ panel - default is 500. Try with 1200 – the incomplete
particles should disappear or be much less. In the current case, the distribution of the
number escaped vs the number trapped is barely changed by including turbulent effects.

Note that using 10 tries AND 10 particle diameters has resulted in 100x the number of
trajectories (158) originally computed. You need to use these settings with care to keep
the compute cost manageable.
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 Simulating Erosion
We can ask Fluent to account for how the particles interact with the wall, and so simulate erosion. This
option is only available if two-way coupling has been activated. However we only need to perform 1
iteration to collect this data - we are not going to run the model until the two-way coupled case
converges. First, we will disable turbulent stochastic tracking (for speed reasons) since it was found to
have little effect in this case.
• Define > Injections
– Highlight ‘injection-0’ then ‘Set’
– Un-Select ‘Discrete Random Walk’
– OK
• Models > Discrete Phase > Edit
– Select ‘Interaction with Continuous Phase’
– Set 1 continuous iteration per DPM iteration
– Go to Physical Models tab
– Enable Erosion/Accretion Model
– OK

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 Simulating Erosion [2]
Run the solver for 1 iteration, so we can compute the erosion quantity
• Solution > Run Calculation > 1 iteration > Calculate
• Click OK if a panel appears asking whether to use changes for the current calculation only
• Graphics > Contours > Set Up...
• Contours of Discrete Phase Variable / DPM Erosion Rate, filled, on ‘wall-fluid’, Display
• Rotate the view and look at the –Z surface of the pipe, in the region where the droplets hit the pipe wall

The functions used to quantify erosion

based on how the DPM parcels impact
the wall can be set as part of the wall
boundary condition.

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 Exporting data to CFD-Post
• Save the project: File > Save Project
Fluent saves the values stored in each FLUID grid cell (so propane velocity, temperature pressure etc). BUT the
motion of particles is separate. Their trajectories are overlaid on the grid cells, not stored as part of the grid cells.
In order to view particle trajectories in CFD-Post, these need to be separately exported from Fluent.
• File > Export > Particle History Data
– Click ‘Exported Particle Variables’
– Pick: Particle Velocity Magnitude, Diameter and Temperature, then ‘Add Variables’, OK
– Select ‘injection-0’ and enter the Particle File Name ‘t-piece-dpm’, then click ‘Write’
• Exit Fluent and return to Workbench

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 Preparing for Post
• From ‘Component Systems’, drag a ‘Results’ object
and drop on the Fluent solution cell.

• Double-click ‘Results’ to launch CFD-Post

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 CFD-Post
• The results are loaded automatically for the FLUID cells
• To load the DPM particle tracks, select
File > Import > Import Fluent Particle Track File
• The file you need is:
Folder_where_project_saved\project_name_files\dp0\FLU\Fluent\t-piece-dpm.xml
• Select Open, then OK

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 CFD-Post [2]
A new item will appear in the model tree “Fluent
PT for Water Droplets”. This gives access to the
data that has been saved per DPM parcel (which
is different from the normal results data which is
saved per grid cell).
• Double-click on ‘Fluent PT for Water Droplets’
• Under ‘Geometry’, set the Maximum number of
Tracks to 500
• Under ‘Color’, set mode to Variable, and color by
“Water Droplets.Particle Diameter”
• Click Apply
This will give a similar image to that we saw in Fluent.

We exported 1580 particle tracks from Fluent. By plotting 500

tracks we are showing approximately every third particle track.
For clarity you may want a number less than 500.

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 CFD-Post [3]
• Double-click on ‘Fluent PT for Water Droplets’
• Under ‘Geometry’, set the Maximum number of
Tracks to 50
• Under ‘Color’, set mode to Variable, and color by
“Water Droplets.Particle Time”
• Under ‘Symbol’, tick ‘Show Symbols’
• set the Max time to ‘User Specified’ at 5.0, minimum
0.0 and interval 1.0 [s]
• Keep default symbol of ‘Ball’
• Click Apply
The particle tracks are coloured by particle time. The colour
legend shows it takes about 6.0 s for the water droplets to
pass through the model.
The symbols are plotted every 1.0 s along the trajectories.
Initially all the symbols are together in the top pipe, however
as they meet the main flow more scatter is evident as some
tracks are accelerated more than others.
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 Wrap-up [1]
This workshop has shown how Fluent can be used to simulate the motion of fluid droplets (or solid
particles) that are carried along by the fluid.

• Regular CFD simulations are performed in an ‘Eulerian’ reference frame. The mesh remains fixed, and material
flows through the grid (aka mesh) cells. When simulating particle tracks, these move in a ‘Lagrangian’ reference
frame. The particles/droplets each have their own X,Y,Z coordinates and their properties are stored separately
from the grid cell (normal data) file quantities.

• The user sets the diameter and density of the particles to be simulated. The trajectory through the domain is
computed over a large number of small steps. At each step their relaxation time can be computed (from knowing
their inertia, and the sum of the forces acting on each droplet/particle).

• Here we have performed several different particle-trajectory simulations to investigate:

– The effect of droplet diameter
– The effect of droplets being ‘trapped’ as they hit a wall
– The effects of turbulence (random walk model / stochastic tracking)
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 Wrap-up [2]
Using the discrete-phase model, there are several other enhancements to this basic setup that we
could simulate:

• Coupling the DPM motion to that of the continuous phase (so that the surrounding propane has its own
momentum / temperature modified by the presence of the droplets).

• Simulating multi-component particles:

– Sample application: An industrial spray drier. Solid particles are introduced which have a moisture content. Thermal
energy is taken from the surrounding fluid, the moisture is removed from the particles making them lighter.
Simultaneously this water is added as vapor to the continuous phase.

• Simulating reacting particles:

– Sample application: A coal burner for a power station. The volatile components of the coal particle evaporate and react
with the surrounding air generating heat.

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