As engineers and scientists, an understanding of fluid dynamics is vital as it affects almost all of the products and processes that we create and design. The use of computational tools has revolutionised our ability to understand complex fluid dynamics problems, from the early adopters of fluid analysis tools in the transport industry (aerospace, automotive, rail and marine) through to engineers responsible for chemical processing, extraction and generation of energy (both carbon-based and renewable) and everyday concerns such as heat, cooling and ventilation.
- Fluid Analysis Applications
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Historically, an understanding of the way fluids behave was achieved by engineers and scientists through the use of laborious tests, observations and a constant cycle of trial and error, which becomes a slow and expensive approach. With the advent of the digital computer and the rapid advancement of computing resources throughout the 90’s and 2000’s, the use of computational techniques to solve these fluid dynamics problems has opened up a world of opportunities for engineers in this field, including:
- A more detailed understanding of the distribution of key fluid dynamic quantities, such as temperature, pressure, velocity and concentrations of gas/solid/liquids; without being limited to a finite number of experimental probes.
- The ability to look inside a product or process to understand what is going on; either to better understand the reasons that a certain design is superior, or to visualise and troubleshoot the root cause of an existing design problem.
- A method of simulating fluid phenomena that were previously too difficult (due to scale or environmental effects) or hazardous to test in physical experiments.
- The possibility to rapidly run through a variety of “what if?” scenarios, or to perform more detailed optimisation studies to arrive at an optimal configuration.
- LEAP Capabilities
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The team at LEAP Australia and New Zealand have been helping our customers to solve complex fluid dynamics problems for over 15 years. Since fluid dynamics affects so many aspects of our everyday lives, there is an infinite variety of problems that can be tackled involving fluid flow and heat transfer. Indeed, this challenge is a big part of the reason that our Fluid Dynamics team gets such great enjoyment from their work.
The most effective way in which Fluid Analysis tools are used will depend on the individual circumstances of your company: they could be used to troubleshoot an existing problem at your plant, or instead to squeeze that extra fraction of performance boost from an existing design. In the case of a poorly designed factory basement, there may be hot spots in a corner which are 10 or 20 degrees hotter due to inadequate ventilation. This scenario worsens if there are also exhaust gases which are drawn into a recirculation zone and are building to potentially toxic levels. In other fields, such as competitive sport, only a small reduction in the drag force on a swimmer’s body may be enough to elevate them from Bronze into the Gold medal position.
In Australia and New Zealand, the engineering community is often dealing with the additional complexity posed by problems that involve multi-phase flows (those involving combinations of gases/solids/liquids), complex heat transfer mechanisms including solar or thermal radiation, or flow turbulence that cannot be captured using traditional “averaged” turbulence modelling techniques. The experience of our team at LEAP gives our customers the confidence to tackle these complex fluid dynamics and heat transfer problems with a unique combination of the best engineering software tool for their job, ANSYS CFD, alongside a tailored program for training and support/mentoring to ensure their success.
- Associated Products
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