Mixingtank Simulation Flow Blend PDF

Flow and Blend Simulations in
Mixing tank using Fluent

15.0 Release
Sravan Kumar. N
ANSYS Inc.
1 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential
Agenda
• Geometry & Mesh

• Single phase simulation
• Case setup
• Results
• Blend simulation
• Case setup
• Results

Bioreactor: Geometry
Tank Diameter (in) 40

Operating volume (m^3) 1.0725
Liquid level (in) 55
Number of impellers 2
Impeller(s) Rushton Turbine & LA310
Impeller diameter (in) RT-18” & LA310-16”
Shaft Diameter (in) 1.6
Sparger Straight sparger with bottom facing gas

inlet
Number of baffles 4
Baffle dimensions (in.) 3.6” & 10” from tank bottom

Bioreactor: Geometry
Working volume: 1072L

Impellers:2
– Rushton turbine
– LA-310 (down pumping)
Baffles: 4
Straight sparger
Mesh
Tetragonal elements
Number of cells:~ 725K

Bioreactor: Mesh distribution
Working volume: 1072L

Impellers:2
– Rushton turbine
– LA-310 (down pumping)
Baffles: 4
Straight sparger
Mesh
• Tetragonal elements
• Number of cells:~ 725K

Flow simulation: Reading mesh file
Opening Fluent
• You can open the fluent by double clicking
on the Fluent case file
• Or StartAll ProgramsANSYS
XX.YFluid DynamicsFLUENT
• This opens up the Fluent session launcher
• Make sure that 3D is selected as
Dimension and Double Precision is
selected in Options
Reading the mesh file

• In Fluent menu bar, go to FileRead
Mesh and browse to the location where
the mesh file is present and select the
appropriate file

Mesh:
In Problem Setup
• GeneralMeshScale
– Make sure that the dimensions of the
domain are proper
– You can scale the domain by selecting
the unit used to create the geometry or
specify a scaling factor to scale the
geometry
• Check the mesh using
GeneralMeshCheck option

Solver: Models
Models
• Select ModelsViscous to open the
turbulence model panel
• Select k-epsilon model with Realizable
option
– Keep the Near-wall Treatment as
default.
• If there are no baffles in the tank,
Reynolds Stress model (RSM) will be
accurate for highly swirling flows
– Since convergence can be difficult with
RSM, you can run the simulation with
RKE for few thousand iterations before
switching over to RSM.

Selecting fluid material
Materials
• Select Materials option and select Fluid
and click Edit option to open the material
properties panel.
• Click on Fluent Database to open the
material properties database. Browse
through the materials and select water-
liquid, click copy and close the database.
• Edit the water properties accordingly and
click on Change/Create.
• Close the material properties window.

Cell zone conditions
Click on cell zone conditions and

select a fluid zone and click Edit
Change the material from air to
water-liquid
If the zone is rotating zone, select
Frame motion option
• In the details below provide rotational
axis origin and rotational axis direction
vector
• Provide the angular velocity
– You can change the units of angular velocity to
rpm using top menu bar
DefineUnitsAngular Velocityrpm
Click OK to close the window.
Similarly set similar conditions to other
rotational zone.
For stationary zone, simply change the
material from air to water-liquid.

Boundary conditions
• Single phase flow simulation can be used under the

assumption that the liquid level will not change appreciably at
the chosen operating conditions and can be considered as flat
shear free surface.
• If there is any boundary that exists in rotational zone but is
stationary in absolute frame, make sure you specify the
boundary condition in absolute frame by selecting wall
motion as zero.

Boundary conditions
In boundary conditions,
• Select the boundary that represents the
top surface of the tank and click Edit
– In shear condition select Specified Shear
option and keep default value of zero.
– Click OK to close the panel.
– This is similar to symmetry boundary
condition where there are no vertical
gradients across the surface are present

Boundary conditions
• Select the boundary that represents
the shaft surface in the stationary
zone of the tank and click Edit
– Under Wall Motion, select Moving
Wall.
– Under Motion, select Absolute and
Rotational
• Provide the rotational speed and the
rotational axis origin and direction
similar to what is provided in cell
zone conditions
– Click OK to close the window

Boundary conditions
• If the baffles are of zero thickness, make sure that the boundary type is
selected as wall
• If the boundary type is selected as interior, change it to wall boundary
condition
– Fluent will create a shadow wall for zero thickness wall surfaces

Solution Methods
SolutionSolution Methods
• Select Second order Upwind scheme for
Momentum
• Use first order upwind scheme for
turbulence quantities
– After running the simulation for few
thousand iterations, you can switch the
turbulent quantities to second order
upwind scheme
– This can be automatically done using
Calculation Activities
• If RSM model is used, keep the first order
upwind scheme for Reynolds stresses.

Solution Controls
SolutionSolution Controls
• Change the pressure URF to 0.5
• Momentum: 0.5
• If the residuals are not converging well,
– Reduce the momentum to 0.3
– Reduce the turbulent kinetic energy and
dissipation rate URFs to 0.8

Monitors
MonitorsResidual
• Lower the absolute residual criteria for all
varialbles
• Click OK to close the panel.
MonitorsMoment
• Select the impeller boundaries under Wall Zones
• Select Plot and Write option
• Provide the Moment center and Moment axis
inputs similar to the rotational axis inputs
specified in the cell zone conditions
MonitorsVolume
• Create a volume monitor for volume average
velocity over all fluid zones
These three monitors will help checking
whether the simulation has reached a steady
state or not.
Make sure that you check both moment and
velocity monitor for checking the steady state
apart from checking residuals

Solution Initialization
SolutionSolution Initialization
• Provide an initial value of 0.01 for
turbulent kinetic energy and 0.1 for
turbulent dissipation rate
• Click Initialize button to initialize the
solution

Calculation activities
SolutionCalculation activities
• Autosave
– Specify autosave frequency so that
intermediate files are saved
• Automatically Initialize and Modify Case
– This option allow the specification of
any commands to modify the case setup
during the simulation
– Select this option and click on Edit

Calculation activities
SolutionCalculation activities
• Automatically Initialize and Modify Case
– Keep the default value for initializing the case
– Select Case Modification tab
– Increase the defined modifications to 2.
– We can enter the commands that can change the
discretization scheme from first order to second
order after specified number of iterations.
• The image here shows that the simulation is run with
default settings for 2000 iterations and discretization
schemes for k and epsilon are changed to second order
after 2000 iterations and simulation is run for 8000
more iterations after changing the discretization
schemes.
– Click OK to close the panel
– A Question dialog box may appear. If the Original
Settings field is empty, then you may be notified
that the original settings will be lost if the case is
saved after the modifications are applied. It will
prompt you for a response when asked if you would
like to add commands that specify the original
settings.
– You can select No.

Run Calculation
Save the initial case and data files through FileWriteCase & Data
SolutionRun Calculation
• Click Calculate button to start the calculation
Monitor the solution for residuals, moment and average velocity
• Interrupt the calculation if a steady state is reached in both moment and
average velocity

Results: Flow simulation
Moment monitor
Volume average velocity monitor

Velocity vectors on Y=0 plane
Blend time simulation setup

Blend time simulation: Introduction
• Blend time simulation will be performed using the flow field

data obtained from flow simulation.
• Flow field will be frozen and the tracer mass fraction is solved
in transient way to calculate the time taken to reach the
uniform concentration.
• A small region containing few cells will be marked and tracer
mass fraction will be patched in this region with a value of 1.
• Point monitors will be defined where the tracer mass fraction
will be tracked w.r.t time.
• These saved monitors will be analyzed later to calculate the
blend time with desired uniformity.

Blend simulation: Opening Fluent simulation
Opening Fluent
• You can open the fluent by double clicking
on the Fluent case file
• Or StartAll ProgramsANSYS XX.YFluid
DynamicsFLUENT
• This opens up the Fluent session launcher
• Make sure that 3D is selected as Dimension
and Double Precision is selected in Options
Reading the case and data files

• If the case file is already read, Fluent displays
the mesh and you can read the data file
through FileRead Data option in menu
bar
• Or, In Fluent menu bar, go to FileRead
Case & Data and browse to the location
where the fluent files are present (previous
slide) and select the appropriate file

Blend simulation: Setup
Open fluent session as specified in previous slide and

read the saved case and data files of the flow
simulation.
Click on General in Problem Setup column

• Change the Time option from Steady to Transient
Click on Models option and select Species option in the

column and click Edit
Select Species Transport and deselect Inlet Diffusion

and Diffusion Energy Source in Options column.
Click Apply
You will get a notification that material properties are
changed. Click OK to close the notification
window
Click Ok to close the Species model panel.

Blend simulation: Material properties
Click on Materials and select water-liquid

under Fluid and click Create/Edit
button
Material properties panel for water liquid
will be opened. Change the Name to
tracer and remove the chemical
formula and leave the rest of the
properties same.
Click Change/Create button
A Question window appears asking whether
to overwrite the water-liquid. Click No.
This will create a separate tracer
material with similar properties that of
water.

Blend simulation: Mixture properties
Under Material Type, select Mixture

In the Properties column, against
Mixture Species, click Edit
Add tracer to the Selected Species
followed by water-liquid. Remove
the other species from the
Selected Species list.
Now the mixture material contains
tracer and water. Click Ok to close
the panel

Blend simulation: Mixture properties
Under Properties, change the Density

formulation to Volume-Weighted-
Mixing-Law
Similarly change the Viscosity
formulation to Mass-Weighted
Mixing-Law
Provide the Mass Diffusivity as 1e-9 as
liquid-liquid diffusivities are of this
range
Click Change/Create button and Close
the Materials panel.

Blend simulation: Solution settings
In Problem setup, click on

ModelsEnergy and switchoff
the energy equation
SolutionSolution Methods
• Under Spatial discretization change
the tracer scheme to QUICK scheme
SolutionSolution Controls
• Click on Equations
• Select only tracer and deselect other
equations

Blend simulation: Residuals
Solution
• Click on MonitorsResiduals
– Change the Absolute criteria for tracer
residual from 0.001 to 5e-5
• Switch off the other monitors like
Moment monitor and volume monitors if
defined.

Blend simulation: Iso-surface
In top Menu bar, select SurfaceIso-

Surface
• Create a surface by choosing appropriate
x, y or z-coordinate and give a name.
• Click Create to create the surface and
Close the panel

Blend simulation: Creating dose point
In the top horizontal menu bar, select DisplayMesh
Select the shaft, impeller and the iso-surface created in

previous slide under Surfaces.
Click Display and Close the panel.
In the top menu bar, select AdaptRegion

• Select Sphere under shapes
• Click on “Select points with mouse” option
• Right click button is the mouse probe button. Right click on
the desired location to select center
• Right click on another point, which will decide the radius as
distance between previously selected point and this point
• Click on Mark
• Number of cells marked will be displayed in console. Make
sure that atleast 10 cells are marked. If not, select the
center and radius again.
• Click Close to close the window
• You can also select the points in different locations or give
the center and radius manually.
This marked region will act as dose point for tracer

Blend simulation: Creating points to monitor
mass fraction
In the top menu bar, select

SurfacePoint
• Click on “Select points with mouse”
option
• Right click on the mesh at desired
location to select a point where
tracer mass fraction needs to be
monitored
• Give a name to the point surface
and click Create
• Similarly create more points in the
tank to monitor tracer mass
fraction
• Click Close button to close the
panel

Blend simulation: Defining monitors
In Solution, click on Monitors

Under Surface Monitors, click Create…
• Under Report Type, select Vertex Average
• Under Field variable, select Species
• Under surfaces, select the point monitor
created to monitor tracer mass fraction
• Select Plot and Write options to enable
plotting and writing of monitor
• Under X-Axis, select Flow Time and select
Time Step to get the data
• Click Ok to define the monitor and close
the panel.
Similarly define other monitors in the
same way if there are multiple
point surfaces

Blend simulation: Initial conditions
Under Solution, select Solution

Initialization
• Click Patch
• Select tracer under Variable
• Select the recent spherical register under
Register to Patch column
• Provide 1 as value
• Click Patch and Close the panel.

Blend simulation: Setup procedure for
animation
An iso-surface of tracer mass fraction will be created with a

value equals to half of average mass fraction in the
domain
This iso-surface represents the tracer mass fraction front.
Displaying this isosurface at specified interval of time steps
will show the movement of tracer front in the domain.
Images will be saved at this interval to create an animation
which shows the tracer front movement.

Blend animation setup: Calculate volume average
tracer mass fraction
Under Results column, go to

ReportsVolume integrals and
click Setup
• Under Report Type, select Volume-
Average
• Under Field Variable, select
speciesMass fraction of tracer
• Under Cell zones, select all the fluid
zones
• Click Compute
• The average mass fraction will be
displayed in the window and the
console
• Click Close button to close the
window.
• Calculate the value of half of the
average concentration.

Blend animation setup: Create iso-surface of tracer

SurfaceIso-surface
• Create a Surface of Constant
SpeciesMass fraction of tracer and
provide an Iso-Value of half the average
concentration
• Give the name of the surface as tracer-
front
• Click Create to create the surface and
Close the panel

Blend animation setup: Setting a view
Displaying the surfaces

• In menu bar, go to DisplayMesh
• Select Edges in options, Outline in Edge
Type
• Click on Outline button twice to select all
the boundary surfaces. Include tracer-
front surface in the Surfaces list
• Click Display and Close the window
In the Menu bar, select
DisplayViews
• Select a view in the Views list and click
Apply to setup a view
• Adjust the view by rotating the geometry
in the graphics window using left mouse
button for better view.
• Give this view a name as view-0 and click
on Save
• Close the Views panel.
Blend animation setup: Recording journal file
In the top menu bar

• FileWriteStart-Journal
• Give the name of the journal file as tracer-
images.jou and click Ok.
• From this point all the operations done in
fluent will be recorded in the journal file.

Setting a window for display

• In menu bar, go to DisplayOptions
• Change the Active Window to 5 and click
Set
• Click Apply and Close the window
Displaying the surfaces
• In menu bar, go to DisplayMesh
• Remove Edges in options and select Faces
and include tracer-front surface in the
Surfaces list along with other tank
boundaries like baffles, tank wall etc.
• Remove the post-processing surfaces
(e.g., x=0 surface)
• Click Display and Close the window.

Setting the transparency

• In menu bar, go to DisplayScene
• Under Names, select all the faces except
tracer-front and click on Display button
– This will open the display properties window
– Select Visible, Faces, Lighting under Visibility and set
the Transparency to 60 and click Apply and Close the
window.
• Under Names, deselect all the surfaces
and select tracer-front surface and click
on Display button
– Select Visible, Faces, Lighting under Visibility, Adjust
the color, set the Transparency to 0, click Apply and
Close the window.
• Click on Close button to close the window

In the Menu bar, select

DisplayViews
• Select the already saved view view-0 in
the Views list and click Apply
• Click Close button to close the window.
In the Menu bar, select FileSave
Picture
• Select JPEG as Format
• Select Color
• De-select white Background
• Click Save
• Give the name as tracer-%t.jpg and click
OK.
– This will attach the time step to the file name
• Click Close button to close the Save
Picture window.

Setting the window to default

• In menu bar, go to DisplayOptions
• Change the Active Window to 1 and click
Set
• Click Apply and Close the window
In the top menu bar
• FileWriteStop-Journal

Blend simulation: Calculation activities
In Solution, select Calculation

Activities
• Under Execute Commands, click on
Create/Edit button
– Increase the Defined Commands to 1
– Select Active
– Specify the interval after which the
images need to be saved under Every
– Select Time Step under When
– Under command, give “file read-
journal tracer-images.jou”
– Click Ok to close the window.
This will read the journal file saved
previously after specified time
steps and save the tracer-front
image

Blend simulation: Calculation activities
In Solution, select Calculation

Activities
• Click on Edit button under
Autosave Every option
Autosave data files
• You can specify the interval after
which the intermediate data files
will be saved
• Click OK to close the window.

Blend simulation: Run Calculation
Under Solution, select Run

Calculation
• Specify the Time Step Size
– A value of 0.01 sec can be used by default
• Specify the Number of Time Steps
such that number of time steps *
time step size gives the desired
flow time until which the
simulation needs to run.
FileWriteCase&Data and
give the appropriate name to
save the initial blend case and
data files.
Under SolutionRun Calculation
• Click Calculate to start the simulation.

Blend simulation:
During the simulation

• Monitor files will be displayed and written in the directory where case and
data files are present
• Tracer mass fraction front images will be saved at each specified interval
• Run the simulation until the point monitors reach the uniform concentration
and the value do not change with additional simulation time.

Blend simulation:
After the simulation,

• Save the final case and data files of blend simulation
• Process the point monitors in Microsoft Excel to calculate the time taken for
each monitor to reach desired uniformity (E.g.,95% or 99%)
• An animation can be created using the saved tracer image files. The procedure
to create the animation files from image files can be found here:
http://www.bakker.org/cfm/graphics01.htm

Results: Blend simulation
Evolution of species mass fraction at

different points is shown here.
Maximum blend time considering all
the four monitors
• ~13 sec (for 95% homogeneity)

Blend simulation: Animation with ImageMagick
software
If the ImageMagick is already installed,

you can create the animation using
these steps
• Open command prompt
• Go to the directory where the tracer
image files are present
In command prompt, go to the directory where the

compressed file (.zip) is present using cd command.

Blend simulation: Animation with ImageMagick
software
Use the following command to convert

tracer-%t.jpg image files to .gif
images
• “mogrify –format gif tracer*.jpg”
To create animation
• “convert –adjoin –delay 5 *.gif blend-
animation.gif”

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Flow and Blend Simulations in

Mixing tank using Fluent

• Geometry & Mesh

2 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Tank Diameter (in) 40

Shaft Diameter (in) 1.6

Sparger Straight sparger with bottom facing gas

Baffle dimensions (in.) 3.6” & 10” from tank bottom

3 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Working volume: 1072L

4 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Working volume: 1072L

5 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Reading the mesh file

6 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

7 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

8 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

9 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Click on cell zone conditions and

10 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

• Single phase flow simulation can be used under the

11 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

12 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

13 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

14 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

15 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

16 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

17 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

18 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

19 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

20 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

21 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Volume average velocity monitor

23 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

• Blend time simulation will be performed using the flow field

24 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Reading the case and data files

25 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Open fluent session as specified in previous slide and

Click on General in Problem Setup column

Click on Models option and select Species option in the

Select Species Transport and deselect Inlet Diffusion

26 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Click on Materials and select water-liquid

27 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Under Material Type, select Mixture

28 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

Under Properties, change the Density

29 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

In Problem setup, click on

30 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

31 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

In top Menu bar, select SurfaceIso-

32 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

In the top horizontal menu bar, select DisplayMesh

Select the shaft, impeller and the iso-surface created in

Click Display and Close the panel.

In the top menu bar, select AdaptRegion

This marked region will act as dose point for tracer

33 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

In the top menu bar, select

34 © 2013 ANSYS, Inc. December 11, 2014 ANSYS Confidential

In Solution, click on Monitors