Persistent mass flux error
 

Hello Cfders :

This is a somewhat open ended question - I ask it to have some good discussion on this topic.

I am running a steady 2d axisymmetric hypersonic case with a well validated flow solver. The case is the flow around a hypersonic body and there is some unsteadiness due to vortex shedding from the rear of the body. So, the residuals dont go down much. I have checked the y+ values on all walls and they are within the permissible range - I am using wall functions.

When I post-process, I see that the mass flux balance over the whole domain has a -2.8% error. I have tried finer grids, changing the bc to nonreflecting, running it out further, etc. all to no avail.

If this was your case, what else would you try ?

Thanks

Sam

How are you post processing? Does the flow solver output face-based mass flux data or are you interpolating that from cell- or node-based data? This can make all of the difference. For cell-based FVM, I like to store the mass flux data on the faces as (somewhat) redundant information specifically for this reason. In principle, you can reproduce the mass fluxes from non-face data, but it will require duplicating, say, the gradient computation for velocity and density, limiting of that gradient, and interpolation to the boundary faces. Off the shelf post processing tools likely won't do exactly the same thing unless it was co-developed with the CFD code.

The second issue is that your problem is NOT steady if you have vortex shedding. The fact that "the residuals dont go down much" indicates to me that you don't have a solution yet.