LAB Task 3

2D Analysis of air flow over a circular cylinder in ANSYS Fluent

Unsteady Laminar and Turbulent Analysis over a cylinder.

Problem Statement:
In this analysis we have to find velocity and pressure distribution of a time varying flow over a
circular body. The analysis is for two cases i.e., laminar (Re = 20) and Turbulent (Re = 120). The
figure below illustrates the problem:

Procedure:
In this problem we will follow the usual procedure of making a geometry and meshing with
refinements near the cylinder edge. Next in the setup we will select the transient mode in general
tab and apply both laminar and turbulent conditions one by one. After assigning material and its
relevant properties we will apply boundary conditions and after initializing we will run
calculations for a specified time step and number of time steps. Finally we will draw analysis and
compare the results for the turbulent and laminar flows in time-varying unsteady flow.

Geometry & meshing

We created a circle of 1 m diameter and an enclosure of 3 by 4 m rectangle. We created a surface
of the outer body that is the fluid domain and assigned it as fluid domain. Next, we moved to
meshing where a mesh size of 0.05 m was given for rectangular elements. We named the
selections as inlet, outlet, walls, and cylinder for respective locations. The following figure
shows the meshing:
Setup
The first step in setup is to select the transient analysis option. We performed the analysis for the
laminar case first and then used a k-epsilon turbulent model for the turbulent one. In this problem
we had the liberty to choose the dynamic viscosity for changing the Reynolds number given by:

ρuD
ℜ=
μ

For the laminar case the Reynolds was taken as 20 and the viscosity was 0.05 for 1 m/s velocity
and 1 kg/m^3 density.

For turbulent case the Reynolds was taken as 120 and the viscosity was 0.00833 for 1 m/s
velocity and 1 kg/m^3 density.

Relevant boundary conditions i.e., inlet velocities, no slip boundary, were applied and the
analysis was initialized using hybrid initialization. Finally, the calculations were performed using
a time step of 0.2 s and the number of time step 2. The max number of iterations per time step
was 20 so a total of 40 iterations were performed.
Results
Inlet velocity = 1 m/s

Dynamic viscosity = 0.05 kg/m s

Laminar flow; Reynolds number = 20.

Velocity Contour

Time = 0.2 seconds

Time = 0.4 seconds

Time = 0.6 seconds

 Time =0.8 seconds

Pressure Contours

Time = 0.2 seconds

Time = 0.4 seconds

Time = 0.6 seconds

Time = 0.8 seconds
Inlet velocity = 1 m/s

Dynamic viscosity = 0.00833 kg/m s

K-epsilon turbulent model; Reynolds number = 120.

Velocity Contour

Time = 0.2 seconds

Time = 0.4 seconds

Time = 0.6 seconds

 Time = 0.8 seconds

Pressure Contour

Time = 0.2 second

Time = 0.4 seconds

Time = 0.6 seconds

 Time = 0.8 seconds

Conclusion

To conclude the analysis we can say that the variation of velocity and pressure with time for
turbulent and laminar case was observed and it can be seen form the velocity an pressure
contours showed change with time in case of turbulent but no significant change was observed
for laminar flow.