basic question about force/torque-calculation
 

Hallo guys,

today I had a discussion with a colleague of mine about the principles of calculation force and torque on a solid structure with cfd and the following question appeared:

Let's assume we are estimating the air-flow about a solid structures (like for example a wing) with a 2d-simulation-model. Now we want to calculate force and torque acting on the structure. As I understood from the discussion, programs like openFoam are integrating the pressure on the outer surface of the structure.

Would it be also possible to define a control-volume (containing the structure) and use linear and angular-momentum of the air-flow to calculate force and torque? If yes, does it make any difference and what are the benefits of each method?

Thanks for your answers

Greetings from Austria

Stephan

Note that, for viscous flows, the pressure is only a part (the isotropic one) of the stress tensor... the complete set of forces requires the action of the remaining stresses

So you are talking about considering shear-stress, when evaluating the surface-forces?

But how about the other proposed method (with a control-volume and evaluation via momentum). Is that a total wrong idea?

Are you referring to something like Trefftz plane analysis?

Yes, but with cfd, you know the velocity on the surface of a Chosen Controller volume, so calculating the momentums would be easy.

It can be done, because as you note, you have the quantities necessary to perform the calculation. The reason you don't see more of it (based on my experience/recollection/opinion) is that in CFD we also have what we need on the body to do a direct calculation. Additionally, when multiple bodies are involved in a simulation a Trefftz-type analysis cannot separate out the individual contributions. Thus, it is impractical for applied CFD used in simulations for store separation, component analysis, and the like. So while it can be a useful technique in certain testing situations (where it may be difficult to measure fluid quantities on the body surface), it doesn't really offer any advantage in CFD where all the information is known on both the body surface and the farfield.

Thanks for your answer. The reason why I asked is based on the following "problem". We are doing calculations on a special kind of rotor (a cyclogyro) and the predicition-quality of torque/power seems to be pretty poor (after comparing cfd with measurement-data).

So I thought it is maybe more accurate to use this farfield method.