Flow Analysis of Industrial Equipment Using The Native Openfoam Gui Helyx

Flow Analysis of Industrial Equipment
using the native OpenFOAM GUI HELYX

Dutch OpenFOAM® Users Group – 6th user meeting
September 17th, 2013
Agenda
Introduction
HELYX: Improved OpenFOAM® version with GUI
HELYX-MESH: Mesh enhancements
Case 1: Analysis of a pump suction line
Case 2: Analysis of an actuated butterfly valve
Final words
© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 2/54

Profile Dynaflow Research Group (DRG)
Engineering consultant
 Pipe stress calculations
 Stress calculations in vessels, heat exchangers, other equipment
 Transient pipe flow calculations
 Since 5 years increasingly CFD
(either directly or within project scope)
Clients mostly Oil and Gas industry
Benefits of OpenFOAM
 Cheaper than commercial CFD (HELYX 11,500 EUR annual fee)
 Low additional parallelization
 Access to source code

Challenges using OpenFOAM® solved by using HELYX
Clients have doubts about using OpenFOAM® compared to commercial CFD

 Mostly ignorance at the client results in concerns about reliability of results
 Solved by an alliance with ENGYS to use and act as a reseller of HELYX CFD
Meshing
 Robustness
 Quality in complex industrial geometries
 Fast and reliable meshing allows faster project handling

Agenda
Introduction
Final words

What exactly is HELYX CFD?
 HELYX-GUI: Propriety Native GUI tailored for the HELYX-CORE.
 HELYX-MESH: Improved version of snappyHexMesh leading to much better layer

generation, faster mesh generation times (up to 50%) and faster convergence (up to
30%) compared to the standard OpenFOAM® mesher.
 HELYX-CORE: Extended OpenFOAM® library with many improvements originating from

industrial projects.
 HELYX-CORE Documentation: Extensive documentation (500+ pages) of the HELYX-

CORE, including detailed description of all standard OpenFOAM® modules.
 Unlimited 1st Class Support: Telephone/email help line.
 Simple, single file installer: Installers available for Linux and Windows platforms.

Significant enhancement based on industrial projects (I)
Based on OPENFOAM® 2.1 (2.2 integration Q3 2013)
Full integration of Engys Edition enhanced features
Instant updates with online repository
Support for ParaView with parallel cases
Single file caseSetup for batch execution

 Multiphase
 Arbitrary mesh interfaces
 User customisable modules for a large range of solvers
Improved, fully integrated radiation (thermal and solar)
Humidity transport with wall evaporation/condensation
swak4Foam integration

Significant enhancement based on industrial projects (II)
General solver support for porous-thermal-MRF zones
50+ new boundary conditions

 Improved wall functions and simplified turbulent inlets
 0D lumped capacitance transient thermal boundaries
 Resistive outlet
Coupling with RadTherm, a professional thermal simulation tool
Accelerated Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) analysis
Improved solver stability (DES, multiphase)
Run time output of Ensight data
Enhanced meshing

Agenda
Introduction
Final words

HELYX-Mesh overview: comparison with OF 2.2.0
Feature HELYX snappyHexMesh 2.2.0 snappyHexMesh
Automatic blockMesh  
Feature Line  (Automatic and Implicit)  (Manual and Explicit)
Searchable surface feature Lines  
Multi-region support  
Non-manifold splitting (robustness)  
Edge collapsing  
Proximity refinement  
Volumetric smoothing  
Parallel  (scaling above 60 cores)  (no scaling above 60 cores)
Layer control  (10 different methods available)  (3 different methods available)
Small leak closure  
Wrapping  
Interior Layers  
Automatic AMI setup  

Automatic feature edge capturing (no need .eMesh)
Improved surface snapping and full projection of near-wall layers to inlets,
outlet, symmetry planes
Standard
Comparison snappyHexMesh
v2.2 (searchableCylinder)
HELYX
v2.1
Standard v2.2 HELYX 2.1

Extended boundary layer control
T2
tf 0.3
Specify any three of the following t0 1mm
parameters:
 First cell height (t0)
 Final cell height (tf)
 Expansion ratio (R)
 Number of layers (N)
 Total layer thickness (T)
Improved handling of high aspect ratio

elements
N5
R 1.3
Tf 0.4
N 10
R 1.3
T0 1mm

Enhanced layering on concave and convex edges
Important for resolving boundary layer flows for internal/external flows
Standard v2.2 HELYX 2.1

Internal boundaries and virtual surfaces
Layers on internal boundaries and virtual

surfaces
CHT / FSI mesh generation

 Improved interior boundary capturing
 Interior feature lines
 2 sided layer generation
Virtual surface layer generation for wakes

and mixing layers
 Specification using tri-surface (STL files)
or a defined primitive shape

Small leak and crack detection in geometry
Closing the user-defined tolerance
 Automatic repair of gaps in

the CAD generated surface
 Increases usability and

robustness for complex
industrial cases

Automatic wrapping of mesh around geometry
Missing geometry and big holes will be fixed
A gap lead to internal meshing Automatic wrapping

Example benchmark
 HELYX Mesh 50% faster than standard

snappyHexMesh
 Solution 30% faster than on standard

snappyHexMesh
 Near wall layers: 97% coverage (95.7%

from standard 2.2.x version)
 1.7M cells
 improved scaling on 32+ processors

Agenda
Introduction
Final words

Problem description
5D straight section required by pump manufacturer to obtain flat flow profile
Layout suggested by client Layout required by pump manufacturer
In field no space to
fit extra pipe section
B
B
Pump suction nozzle C

Problem breakdown and approach
Short project duration ~ 3 weeks (typical)
Inlet side
 Setup models in HELYX
(short, with 5D, with(out) filter)
 Mesher: HELYX snappyHexMesh
 Solver: laminar simpleFoam /

pimpleFoam
Gate valve
 Analyse results in paraView
− Qualitative analysis of flow patern
− Quantitative analysis of pump
entry flow
Filter unit
Pump suction nozzle

System overview; pump suction line
Inlet side
Gate valve
Filter unit
Pump suction nozzle

Naming the case and setting parallel run options
Automatic
decomposition

Selecting multiple .stl files to define geometry/features

Defining surface refinement levels on the patches
Possibility to set levels of multiple patches simultaneously

Defining volume refinement regions
Using primitives or .stl files

Selecting .stl files to define detailed filter zones

Naming the cell zones and specify refinement levels
Each cell zone can independently be refined

Setting the inside point and Create Mesh
snappyHexMesh includes an automatic blockMesh functionality
snappyHexMeshDict
snappyHexMesh runs automatically

Setting up solver parameters after mesh generation

Defining the fluid properties
Possible to append an user fluid to the database

Specify boundary conditions on the different patches
Intuitive boundary conditions based on best practices

Define the porous media on the cell zones
Cell zones generated in meshing phase

Change runtime controls

Start the simulation
All initial conditions in dictionary files are generated automatically
Case structure is setup
solver runs automatically

Meshing at zone edges has steadily improved in OF
HELYX appears to be more robust concerning surface snapping
OF 2.2.x – edge
HELYX OF 2.1.x OF 2.2.x snapping
2.2.x has clearly improved 2.2.x less robust at

meshing on zone edges surface snapping

Feature edge snapping has been incorporated in OF 2.2
HELYX performs more reliable in feature edge snapping without use of .eMesh
HELYX OF 2.2.x OF 2.2.x – edge snapping
Edge snapping has been improved ,

However is not as robust as in HELYX

OF 2.2.x Feature edge snapping is very sensitive to
number of snapping iterations
OF 2.2.x – edge snapping; n=2 OF 2.2.x – edge snapping; n=3

HELYX results in smoother and more homogeneous
refinement
HELYX – snappyHexMesh OF 2.2.x – with edge snapping

HELYX refines consistently at sensible locations
HELYX OF 2.2.x – with edge snapping
Red lines are the Irregular refinement

zone edges around zone edges

HELYX reliably makes the defined zones
HELYX OF 2.2.x – two zones have failed

HELYX results in a smoother zone surface
HELYX – smooth zone surface OF 2.2.x – more castellated surface

Results, qualitative
Pressure drop results in flow Two vortex structures are found in the
perpendicular to the filter surface filter’s downstream flow

Results, quantitative
Each quadrant may not deviate by more than 8% from the cross-sectional mean,
this ensures acceptable balancing conditions inside the vanes of the pump’s
impeller
No filter Filter Filter, with pipe extension
2 3
1 4
OK FAIL Just OK

Problem solution as discussed and approved with client
Original filter design New filter design

Agenda
Introduction
Final words

Problem description
Investigation of transient fluid-dynamic forces on

actuated butterfly valve during closing
 Valve loading can cause problems for actuator
 Steady state investigation revealed no excessive flow
induced forces upon valve

Problem summary
 HELYX
• transient, incompressible, moving
mesh (pimpleDyMFoam),
automatic AMI setup
• Moving mesh + sliding interface
• Dt=0.001 .. 0.002 (variable)
• Simulated time T=20s ≡ 90°
valve rotation
• K-omega SST model
 Material: water
 Two different cases:

• Variable flow – (nominal volume
flow ~700m³/h)
• Fixed flow – (high flow case
2600m³/h)

Transient simulation of closing valve
Run time: 120 hrs / 12 cpus

Case: Fixed pressure loss
 Variable Flow Case
 Shedding induced vibration

Case: Fixed High Flow Rate
 Within spread of straight pipe valve measurements
 Greater flow bleed due to lack of valve seat

Conclusions
Transient results agree well with steady CFD results and literature references
 No excessive forces on valve could be observed
 Actuator problems likely caused by mechanical influences
 HELYX successfully employed to mesh and run transient moving mesh simulation
 AMI + dynamic mesh performs very well with minimal artefacts at the interface
Partial overlap AMI required for full closure of valve

Agenda
Introduction
Final words

Final words
The strategic alliance with ENGYS gives DRG the opportunity to:
 Help our clients by doing CFD themselves using OpenFOAM® and HELYX
 Using HELYX to improve our efficiency on CFD projects
 Provide and sell support packages including HELYX
 Supply training courses in HELYX and OpenFOAM® (November 25 & 26, 2013)
Use of HELYX allows DRG to:

 Reliably meshing of complex geometries
 Fast setup of cases
Opportunities for you:

 HELYX: with GUI, MESH and CORE (to move from commercial CFD)
 HELYX-OS: GPL GUI tailored for standard OpenFOAM® instead of HELYX-CORE (to
occasionally solve CFD problems)
 HELYX-MESH: Stand-alone version of the HELYX mesh generator

Houtsingel 95 T +31 79 361 5150
2719 EB Zoetermeer F +31 79 361 5149
The Netherlands E info@dynaflow.com
Reg nr. 27320315 W www.dynaflow.com

Flow Analysis of Industrial Equipment Using The Native Openfoam Gui Helyx

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Flow Analysis of Industrial Equipment

using the native OpenFOAM GUI HELYX

HELYX: Improved OpenFOAM® version with GUI

HELYX-MESH: Mesh enhancements

Case 1: Analysis of a pump suction line

Case 2: Analysis of an actuated butterfly valve

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 2/54

Clients mostly Oil and Gas industry

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 3/54

Clients have doubts about using OpenFOAM® compared to commercial CFD

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 4/54

HELYX: Improved OpenFOAM® version with GUI

HELYX-MESH: Mesh enhancements

Case 1: Analysis of a pump suction line

Case 2: Analysis of an actuated butterfly valve

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 5/54

 HELYX-GUI: Propriety Native GUI tailored for the HELYX-CORE.

 HELYX-MESH: Improved version of snappyHexMesh leading to much better layer

 HELYX-CORE: Extended OpenFOAM® library with many improvements originating from

 HELYX-CORE Documentation: Extensive documentation (500+ pages) of the HELYX-

 Unlimited 1st Class Support: Telephone/email help line.

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 6/54

Based on OPENFOAM® 2.1 (2.2 integration Q3 2013)

Full integration of Engys Edition enhanced features

Instant updates with online repository

Support for ParaView with parallel cases

Single file caseSetup for batch execution

Improved, fully integrated radiation (thermal and solar)

Humidity transport with wall evaporation/condensation

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 7/54

General solver support for porous-thermal-MRF zones

50+ new boundary conditions

Coupling with RadTherm, a professional thermal simulation tool

Accelerated Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) analysis

Improved solver stability (DES, multiphase)

Run time output of Ensight data

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 8/54

HELYX: Improved OpenFOAM® version with GUI

HELYX-MESH: Mesh enhancements

Case 1: Analysis of a pump suction line

Case 2: Analysis of an actuated butterfly valve

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 9/54

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 10/54

Standard v2.2 HELYX 2.1

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 11/54

Improved handling of high aspect ratio

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 12/54

Standard v2.2 HELYX 2.1

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 13/54

Layers on internal boundaries and virtual

CHT / FSI mesh generation

Virtual surface layer generation for wakes

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 14/54

 Automatic repair of gaps in

 Increases usability and

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 15/54

A gap lead to internal meshing Automatic wrapping

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 16/54

 HELYX Mesh 50% faster than standard

 Solution 30% faster than on standard

 Near wall layers: 97% coverage (95.7%

 improved scaling on 32+ processors

© Dynaflow Research Group, all rights reserved 17/54