Turbulent Flow Simulations with Elmer - A Request
Posted: 28 Feb 2020, 12:18
Hi Peter,
The difficulty of simulating turbulent flows with Elmer has been discussed in these forums many times in the past. I am also aware that most of Elmer development happens through funded projects and there has been little interest in this area. However I would still want to rake up this issue and make a passionate plea to the developers. The reasons:
I've been using OpenFOAM quite regularly for some industrial turbulent flows. However, in the recent past I've also tried my hands on with Elmer - using Navier-Stokes and k-epsilon together for real-life flows in complex geometries - with varying degrees of success. What makes Elmer attractive is the inherent multi-physics capability (Fluid flow + heat transfer + turbulence + electromagnetic effects or conjugate heat transfer with stress analysis on solid part) and the relative ease of case-set up for complex multi-physics, which is not the case with OpenFOAM.
In my view, there is no competitor to Elmer in multi physics when it comes to open source. This problem with turbulence is the only glaring gap in Elmer - a software with such vast scope, multitude of features and models and designed at the very outset for complex multi-physics applications.
If Elmer perfects just one turbulence model (k-eps is enough) good enough for high-reynolds industrial flows, I'm convinced that its use will see a quantum jump. At least we could do a lot more testing with these modifications:
(1) Activating stabilization for the k-epsilon equation (AFAIK, k-eps model has only bubble stabilization which in the current form cannot be used for many real-life meshes with prisms or pyramid elements - comes in the way of extensive testing)
(2) Implementing heat transfer in the k-epsilon wall laws and make the formulation more robust.
As Elmer is otherwise so attractive from a variety of standpoints, I think the issue of turbulence is long overdue and needs urgent attention. I'm willing to help in whatever way I can except coding - for e.g, take part in testing, benchmarking etc. I can also provide real-life industrial test cases and meshes etc. to Peter and the Elmer team.
It's my sincere wish that the Elmer team takes a closer look at this soon ..
-Kumar
The difficulty of simulating turbulent flows with Elmer has been discussed in these forums many times in the past. I am also aware that most of Elmer development happens through funded projects and there has been little interest in this area. However I would still want to rake up this issue and make a passionate plea to the developers. The reasons:
I've been using OpenFOAM quite regularly for some industrial turbulent flows. However, in the recent past I've also tried my hands on with Elmer - using Navier-Stokes and k-epsilon together for real-life flows in complex geometries - with varying degrees of success. What makes Elmer attractive is the inherent multi-physics capability (Fluid flow + heat transfer + turbulence + electromagnetic effects or conjugate heat transfer with stress analysis on solid part) and the relative ease of case-set up for complex multi-physics, which is not the case with OpenFOAM.
In my view, there is no competitor to Elmer in multi physics when it comes to open source. This problem with turbulence is the only glaring gap in Elmer - a software with such vast scope, multitude of features and models and designed at the very outset for complex multi-physics applications.
If Elmer perfects just one turbulence model (k-eps is enough) good enough for high-reynolds industrial flows, I'm convinced that its use will see a quantum jump. At least we could do a lot more testing with these modifications:
(1) Activating stabilization for the k-epsilon equation (AFAIK, k-eps model has only bubble stabilization which in the current form cannot be used for many real-life meshes with prisms or pyramid elements - comes in the way of extensive testing)
(2) Implementing heat transfer in the k-epsilon wall laws and make the formulation more robust.
As Elmer is otherwise so attractive from a variety of standpoints, I think the issue of turbulence is long overdue and needs urgent attention. I'm willing to help in whatever way I can except coding - for e.g, take part in testing, benchmarking etc. I can also provide real-life industrial test cases and meshes etc. to Peter and the Elmer team.
It's my sincere wish that the Elmer team takes a closer look at this soon ..
-Kumar