Zachery TaylorCivil Designer · EI
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M-210 CFD

Laminar and Turbulent Pipe Flow

Mechanical Engineering · 2024Report available

ANSYS Fluent laminar and turbulent airflow analysis in a smooth pipe

A Computational Fluid Dynamics study of air flowing through a 2 m-long, 0.04 m-diameter smooth pipe. The project compared laminar and turbulent flow behavior in ANSYS Fluent, evaluated solution convergence and mesh independence, and examined how the velocity profile developed along the pipe.

Simulation Setup

Modeled airflow through a smooth cylindrical pipe using a 0.02 m/s laminar inlet case and a 2 m/s turbulent inlet case. The turbulent simulation used a k-epsilon model with 5% turbulence intensity.

Mesh Study

Compared 0.003 m and 0.005 m body-sizing meshes containing approximately 469,484 and 114,929 cells to evaluate outlet velocity-profile sensitivity to mesh density.

Convergence

Tracked residuals and compared velocity profiles at intermediate and later iterations, showing that additional iterations produced no significant change after the solutions stabilized.

Key Results

The laminar centerline velocity became essentially fully developed after approximately 0.2 m, while the turbulent case stabilized after approximately 1 m. Laminar results closely matched the provided analytical velocity profile; the turbulent results provided a reasonable approximation.