A question about volume field representations of forces
 

Hello everyone,


I have a curiosity regarding the so-called volume field representations of forces when computing the forces. I set the writeFields in the forces dictionary to yes




Then I ran the problem of the flow around a cylinder in 2D. I got the forces fields where I have in each output folder a forces file named forces:force (also a moment field)


My question is how one should understand these fields ?


I would like to understand how I could compute the overall force vector that is acting on the cylinder given these forces fields representations. I thought that I only have to compute the sum of the forces after projecting them on x and y component using the angle that the cell (at which I have the forces value) is making with center of the cylinder. Is that correct ?

force (N) =
mass (kg or [1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]) * acceleration (m/s^2 or [0 1 -2 0 0 0 0 0])

Thank you dlahaye, I am sorry, I don't know why I messed up in understanding the unit.


So my question is only about how one could compute the resultant force on the whole body given these forces values on the cells which are NOT evenly distributed on the cylinder boundary.


Thanks.

No worries. We are all learning here.

Force-vector on patch = surface-integral stress-tensor * normal-on-patch.

See e.g. Section Simple Stress of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_(mechanics)

Thanks dlahaye, I am still a bit confused of what I should do with fields named forces:force do you mean that I have to compute the integral of these fields over the surface of the cylinder after taking the scalar product with the normal vector ?