Flow over an American

Football
Results of Viscous Simulation – Static Pressure
• As the air flows over the football, it is brought to a
complete halt at its leading edgeface. This location is
called the stagnation point where the velocity of the
air is zero and the static pressure is the highest.
• The contours of static pressure (below) clearly show
the stagnation point near the front of the football.
• As the air travels over of the football, it accelerates along the
upper surface. Because of Bernoulli’s law, the pressure
subsequently reduces. This variation of pressure along the
surface of the football can be clearly seen in the plot below.
Leading edge
of the football

Lower Surface Trailing edge

of the football
Stagnation point

Upper Surface

Contours of static pressure

2
Results of Viscous Simulation – Velocity
• The acceleration of air as it travels over the football is
clearly seen in the contours of velocity magnitude.
Regions of higher
velocity
• The high momentum air cannot withstand the curve of the ball
and detaches itself from the surface. This phenomenon is called
flow separation. A reverse flow of air is established, as shown by
the axial velocity vectors.
• Plotting the variation of axial velocity with distance from the
symmetry plane at a location behind the football, the negative
velocities (especially near the symmetry plane) can be clearly
observed.

Contours of velocity magnitude

Distance from
symmetry plane
Symmetry
plane

Axial velocity

Axial velocity vectors

3
Homework Questions and
Answers
Flow over an American Football
Homework Questions and Answers

• Calculate the Drag coefficient of the football from the inviscid simulation.
‐ The calculated Drag coefficient should be of approximately 0.006. However, theory suggests that no object can generate drag
in an inviscid flow! This finite value of Drag is not physical but is numerical. The techniques implemented to solve the Euler
equations that govern the inviscid flow generate “artificial or numerical viscosity” which plays a role similar to that of
molecular viscosity of the fluid. That is the reason why a small but finite Drag co-efficient is calculated when running an
inviscid simulation.
• Do you observe a reverse flow behind the football?
‐ No! In an inviscid fluid flow over an object, the phenomenon of flow separation does not occur because of the absence of
boundary layers. As a result, a reverse flow region does not exist.

5
Appendix
Flow over an American Football
Setup Changes

• Modifications from the default Ansys Fluent 2020 R1 settings are outlined here.
‐ Axisymmetric consideration (default for 2D: Planar) : Simulation was performed under the assumption of axial
symmetry. Considering the geometry and the physics involved, the assumption is valid. The advantage of such
an assumption is that it reduces the computational cost of the simulations.
‐ Modified residual threshold (default : 1e-3) : For the current simulation, lower residual thresholds of 1e-5 were
used in order to allow the flow to reach steady-state.
‐ Slip-wall boundary on tunnel walls (default – No slip): The problem was setup to replicate an experimental
setup of a football placed inside a wind tunnel. In real experimental setup, the walls of the wind tunnel are
generally far away from the test model and do not influence the flow around the object. In simulations, to
avoid unnecessary computational burden, the full wind tunnel is not modeled and the domain boundaries that
correspond to wind tunnel walls are generally set to a slip-wall which restricts boundary layers from growing
on this boundary, and thereby leaving the flow unaffected.