FLUENT13 Workshop XX VortexShedding

Workshop XX
Vortex shedding around

a cylinder
Introductory
FLUENT Training
ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

© 2010 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. WS7-1 December 2010
WS7: Vortex Shedding
Goals Workshop Supplement
• The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce the user to good techniques

for modelling transient flow
• The case consider here is flow around a cylinder with a Reynolds

number of 100
• Vortex shedding should be observed. But tutorial starts with a steady

state analysis assuming that the user didn’t anticipate this behavior
• This tutorial demonstrates iterative and non-iterative time advancement,

FFT and animations
• The tutorial is carried out using FLUENT and CFD Post in standalone
mode

Introduction Workshop Supplement
• Computational domain created in Design Modeller had the following

dimensions
Name Location Dimension
Cylinder D1 2 m (dia.)
Inlet Length D2 20 m = 10 D
Outlet Length D3 30 m = 15 D
Width D4 40 m = 20 D
• For a dimensionless analysis you may prefer a diameter of 1 m. Note

that Fluent uses the physical dimension. But if you specify a cylinder
diameter of 1m, inlet velocity = 1 m/s, density =1 kg/m3, viscosity will
be 1/Re = 0.01 [Pa.s]

Reynolds Number Effects Workshop Supplement
Re < 5 Creeping flow (no separation)
A pair of stable vortices in the

5-15 < Re < 40 wake
Laminar vortex street

40 < Re < 150
Laminar boundary layer up to

150 < Re < 3×105 the separation point, turbulent
wake
Boundary layer transition to

3×105 < Re < 3.5×106 turbulent
Turbulent vortex street, but

Re > 3.5×106 the separation is narrower
than the laminar case

Start a Fluent project (standalone mode)
Workshop Supplement
• Launch Fluent and choose your working directory.

• Choose ‘2D’
• Choose parallel with 2 processors to take advantage of multi core processor
Note that a parallel token is required in your license
Choose your working

directory here

Read a mesh that was generated in ICEM CFD Workshop Supplement
• Read the FLUENT mesh file : vortex-shedding-coarse.msh

– FileRead Mesh

Mesh Workshop Supplement
• The mesh will read in and display, and the zones will be written out.
– Partition with metis method is automatically performed

Mesh Workshop Supplement
• The mesh needs scaling, in order to have dimensionless format
Final domain
extent
• Close the scale panel and Check the Mesh

– General > Check
– General > Report Quality
• Display the grid again once scaling has been performed

– General > Display

Solver & model Workshop Supplement
• Keep the steady-state pressure-based solver
• Keep laminar model

Materials Workshop Supplement
• The properties to be used for the material ‘air’ need to be set

– For Density, select 1 kg/m3
– For Viscosity, select 0.01 Pa.s, Select Change/Create
• Assign the material ‘air’ to the grid cells

– Select ‘Cell Zone Conditions’
– Highlight ‘fluid’ then ‘Edit’
– Observe ‘air’ is already selected

Boundary Conditions Workshop Supplement
• Inlet
– Set the inlet boundary conditions ‘in’ with V = 1m/s
• Outlet
– The zone named ‘out’ is a pressure outlet with a constant gauge pressure of 0 Pa
• Note that default operating pressure is correct but has no impact on calculation since fluid
density is constant
• Wall and symmetry boundary conditions keep the default values

Solution Methods Workshop Supplement
• Select Solution Methods in the LHS tree
– Use QUICK discretization scheme in order to avoid numerical diffusion

Solution Monitors Workshop Supplement
• Set up residual monitors so the convergence can be monitored

– Monitors > Residuals > Edit
– Make sure ‘plot’ is on
• Create points to monitor quantity

Surface Point
– Specify coordinates (2 , 1)
– Activate point tool to check location on the grid
– (check out point tool before closing panel)
• Surface monitor on point

– Select “vertex-average” on report type and “velocity” “Y-velocity” in field variable
– Options: Print to console & Plot

Solution Initialization Workshop Supplement
• Initialize the flow field based on the far-field boundary

– Compute from > “in” (inlet zone)

Save the Case File Workshop Supplement
• Save the case file

– File > Write Case
• You can write case and data files with extension .gz
– the files will be compressed automatically

Run Calculation Workshop Supplement
• Set the number of requested iterations to 400
Note that solution is not

converging and monitor
shows a regular periodic
behavior

Post-Processing Workshop Supplement
• Choose Graphics and animations > Vectors
Steady state
solution is
asymetric

Save the Case&Data Files Workshop Supplement
• Save the Case&Data files

– File > Write Case&Data..

Transient Run Calculation Workshop Supplement
• This suggests that hydrodynamics instability may occur
• This requires to solve the problem in a transient mode

Problem setup> General

• It is also recommended to change solver Methods. Default pressure

velocity coupling (SIMPLE) may require more iterations to converge
– Use PISO et second order time stepping (under Solution methods)
– This implies also to change under relaxation factors

• Edit the Surface monitor

– Get Data every time step and display Flow time on X axis
– Click write button and specify a name for the file. This type of file can be used later for
Fourier Transform analysis

Save the Transient Case File Workshop Supplement
• Save the transient case file

– File > Write Case

• Method 1 : Choose a time step on Total Length/inlet_velocity/200

– Then you can check if the convergence occurs in less than 20 subiterations
– You can also display courant number …
• (Graphics and Animation > Contours of velocity – Cell courant number)
… And adjust time step so that courant number is close to one
– Time step is proportional to courant number
• Method 2: Choosing appropriate time step for such a problem

requires some literature study and can be more efficient than
above method
– From literature about vortex shedding we know that Strouhal number is between
0.165 for this Reynolds number .This gives an order of magnitude of time step
fD 1 D
St   period    6.06 s
V f St.V
• One can decide to choose around 60 points in the period.

This leads to a time step of 0.1 s
• Specify time step (0.1 s) and number of time step (120)

• Click on the Extrapolate Variables option
– The solution will be speed Up
Note that between 5 and 10 subiterations

are required to converge each time step
Save the Transient Case&Data Files Workshop Supplement
• Save the transient case&data files


• Many time-steps have to be run before to get a periodic signal

– it can be time consuming
• So, we propose you to read the final case and data files:
File Read Case & Data
« vortex-shedding-unsteady.cas.gz »
– This case has been run for 50.4 s until a periodic signal is obtained.
And poor initialisation has been convected several time in the domain
• And to use this new starting point to continue the

convergence process

NITA Workshop Supplement
• Enable the Non Iterative Time Advancement Method (NITA)

– With Fractional Step for Pressure-Velocity Coupling
- NITA is an algorithm used to speed up the

transient solution process
- NITA runs about twice as fast as the ITA scheme
2
-NITA scheme reduce the splitting error to O(Δt2)
by using sub-iterations per time step
Overall time-discretization Truncation Splitting error (due
error for 2nd-order scheme: = error: O(Dt2)
+ to eqn segregation):
O(Dt2) O(Dtn)
- Two flavors of NITA schemes available

- PISO (NITA/PISO)
- Fractional-step method (NITA/FSM)
About 20% cheaper than NITA/PISO on a per
time-step basis
1

• Select Calculation Activities in LHS menu

Post Processing [FLUENT] Workshop Supplement
• Create Q-criterion . This is usually used to caracterize vortex
• Define  Custom Field Function

U V U V
– In 2D incompressible flow it can be written: Q  . 
x y y x
– Use calculator and select field function (Derivatives) to create this new variable:

• Animation sequence will be selected before running calculation

• Select Calculation Activities in LHS menu
3 4
• Edit Surface monitor again

– Add write option
• This data acquisition on the point will be used for a FFT analysis
– UnSelect the Plot option

• Edit Residuals monitor again

– UnSelect the Plot option

Run calculation for creating animation Workshop Supplement
• NITA requires a smaller time step

– Choose 0.05 s
• And 240 time steps

– This corresponds roughly to 2 periods

Save the Transient Case&Data Files Workshop Supplement
• Save the transient case&data files


• To run the animation (Graphics and Animation in the LHS menu)
You can play the animation

and write it to a mpeg format

• FFT analysis (Fast Fourier Transform)

Display Plot
Load input file named

« point-4-y-velocity-final.out »
 This file countains more than 2000 time steps

• FFT analysis : choose magnitude on Y axis and change X range.
Write the FFT to a file and edit this file

The main peak is located for a Strouhal
number of 0.1698
- 3% higher than experiment
The second peak is the harmonic

Signal is not strictly sinusoidal

Close FLUENT – Run CFD-Post Workshop Supplement
• Close FLUENT
• Open a CFD-POST session

– We will create an animation

Post Processing [CFD-Post] Workshop Supplement
• Animation in CFD post can be done based on all the data files
already saved
– Thus, you can create any animation once calculation is finished
• File Load Results

– Select last time step data file:

• Insert a vector

• Activate time step selector
Select successive time steps,

graphics window is updated
• Activate time step selector
Turn off the Repeat

Forever button
Play the animation and Create file

Summary Workshop Supplement
• In this tutorial we have used FLUENT with a transient case
• We have learned how to use iterative and non iterative

advancement scheme
• We checked with FFT analysis that predicted frequency is in

good agreement with results from literature
• We learned how to create animation within Fluent and with

CFD-Post

References Workshop Supplement
• Braza, M., Chassaing, P., and Minh, H.H., Numerical Study and
Physical Analysis of the Pressure and Velocity Fields in the Near
Wake of a Circular Cylinder, J. Fluid Mech., 165:79-130, 1986.
• Coutanceau, M. and Defaye, J.R., Circular Cylinder Wake

Configurations - A Flow Visualization Survey, Appl. Mech. Rev., 44(6),
June 1991.
• Williamson, C.H.K, “Vortex Dynamics in The Cylinder Wake,” Annu.

Rev. Fluid Mechanics 1996. 28:447-539


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Workshop XX

Vortex shedding around

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Goals Workshop Supplement

• The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce the user to good techniques

• The case consider here is flow around a cylinder with a Reynolds

• Vortex shedding should be observed. But tutorial starts with a steady

• This tutorial demonstrates iterative and non-iterative time advancement,

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Introduction Workshop Supplement

• Computational domain created in Design Modeller had the following

Name Location Dimension

• For a dimensionless analysis you may prefer a diameter of 1 m. Note

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Reynolds Number Effects Workshop Supplement

Re < 5 Creeping flow (no separation)

A pair of stable vortices in the

Laminar vortex street

Laminar boundary layer up to

Boundary layer transition to

Turbulent vortex street, but

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

• Launch Fluent and choose your working directory.

Choose your working

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

• Read the FLUENT mesh file : vortex-shedding-coarse.msh

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Mesh Workshop Supplement

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Mesh Workshop Supplement

• The mesh needs scaling, in order to have dimensionless format

• Close the scale panel and Check the Mesh

• Display the grid again once scaling has been performed

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Solver & model Workshop Supplement

• Keep the steady-state pressure-based solver

• Keep laminar model

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Materials Workshop Supplement

• The properties to be used for the material ‘air’ need to be set

• Assign the material ‘air’ to the grid cells

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Boundary Conditions Workshop Supplement

• Wall and symmetry boundary conditions keep the default values

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Solution Methods Workshop Supplement

• Select Solution Methods in the LHS tree

– Use QUICK discretization scheme in order to avoid numerical diffusion

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Solution Monitors Workshop Supplement

• Set up residual monitors so the convergence can be monitored

• Create points to monitor quantity

• Surface monitor on point

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Solution Initialization Workshop Supplement

• Initialize the flow field based on the far-field boundary

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Save the Case File Workshop Supplement

• Save the case file

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0

Run Calculation Workshop Supplement

• Set the number of requested iterations to 400

Note that solution is not

ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary Release 13.0