Cross Axial Rotation problems with FloWorks
 

Hello community, I've just started modeling an in-conduit cross axial turbine using FloWorks. I'm a newbie at CFD and have been having trouble assigning a rotating region(RR) around the turbine in the pipe. I have successfully assigned a cylindrical region around the turbine but the geometry of the pipe intersected with the RR. The results were terrible showing that the RR almost acted like physical wall.

The turbine is spherical, so I have created a sphere to enclose the turbine and define the RR, but FloWorks does not recognize this as a legitimate boundary for a RR. I have been reading a bit about how FloWorks computes around the RR, and it is my understanding that the geometry of the RR should be axisymeterical to the physical geometry in close proximity. This is not possible with a cross axial turbine.

Am I simply going about this the wrong way i.e. is there a simpler more beautiful way to do this, or is FloWorks the problem?

Jacob

Hi Jacob,

Pipe means shaft??? Could you upload your model picture?

No, pipe doesn't mean shaft.

What I have is a turbine inside of a pipe, and it is rotating about an axis that is perpendicular to the flow. The turbine is spherical in shape.

My problem is that a rotating region surrounding the turbine is not axisymmetrical to the flow in the pipe, and that seems to be the problem. I can not change the design, so either FloWorks doesn't do cross-axial rotating regions or I'm going about this the wrong way