MECH5304 Assignment 1 (Submit by February 12

th
, 2013, maximum 4
pages)
Using CFX (or any other package available to you), simulate a three-dimensional air ow in
a straight pipe section (212.75 mm length) followed by a 90
o
bend and another straight pipe
section (85.1 mm length). The pipe has an 8.51 mm internal diameter and the bend has a
47.656 mm radius of curvature. Use CFX or ICEM-CFD (or any software available to you)
for meshing with biased accumulation of nodes towards the wall (ination) and adequate
body spacing (start with 1 mm). Use air at 25 Celsius, one atm reference pressure, no heat
transfer model and a k- turbulence model.
The boundary conditions are:
Inlet conditions: top hat prole (constant normal velocity distribution equivalent to
Reynolds number, Re=10,000)
Wall boundaries: no slip, default 2D region
Outlet conditions: zero gauge average static pressure
Figure 1: Bend Geometry.
From the simulation results:
a) Determine the pressure drop, p, through the pipe-bend-pipe section and compare your
results with empirical estimates. Remember that the outlet gauge pressure was set to zero.
For a straight pipe, the empirically-dened solution to the problem is:
p = f
L
D

U
2
b
2
(1)
2
where the Blasius friction factor, f = 0.316/Re
1/4
(for turb. ows in smooth pipes).
For the bend portion, the empirically-dened solution to the problem is::
p = K
U
2
b
2
(2)
with the resistance coecient estimated to be K = 0.4.
b) Is the pipe ow fully developed when it enters the 90
o
bend?
For turbulent ow, the development length is dened as L
e
/D 4.4Re
1/6
, where Re =
U
b
D/ = U
b
D/ is the Reynolds number. Here is the density, U
b
is the bulk velocity, D
is the pipe diameter, is the air viscosity and is the air kinematic viscosity.
For the fully developed radial distribution, we have
u
+
= y
+
(for y
+
< 5) (3)
u
+
= 3.05 + 5.0ln(y
+
) (for 5 < y
+
< 30)
u
+
= 5.5 + 2.5ln(y
+
) (for y
+
> 30)
where u
+
= u/u

is the dimensionless axial velocity, u

= u
avg
(0.03955Re
0.25
)
0.5
is the
friction velocity, and y
+
= yu

/ is the dimensionless distance from the wall.

At the estimated development length, does the velocity prole match the above-dened
distribution? Export the velocity prole from CFX and plot against the above distribution
in Excel, Tecplot, Matlab, etc.
c) Describe the ow after the 90
o
bend.
d) Verify the simulation against another turbulence model (for example the the k- shear
stress transport model, SST).
e) Change the inlet Reynolds number to Re=1,000. Describe the ow.
Note: 1) Assignments should have: course #, date, student name and ID # (all on the
rst page), abstract, introduction (with background, literature search when necessary and
statement of the problem), methods (with equations, refer to the CFX theory or equivalent),
results and discussion (with verication and validation), conclusions and references.