CFD Online Discussion Forums - forceCoeffs and rhoInf dependency

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forceCoeffs and rhoInf dependency

Hello,

I have an incompressible simpleFoam solution of a flow field. I use forceCoeffs to calculate Cd etc. on some patches.

Code:

coeffsCar

{

    type        forceCoeffs;

    functionObjectLibs ( "libforces.so" );

    outputControl timeStep;

    outputInterval 10;



    patches $carPatches;

    pName       p;

    UName       U;

    rhoName     rhoInf; 

    log         true;       

    rhoInf      3;           

    liftDir     (0 0 1);

    dragDir     (1 0 0);     

    pitchAxis   (0 1 0);    

    CofR        (0.56725 0 -0.1274); 

    magUInf     45;

    lRef        1.5;     

    Aref        0.4;

I tried it on exactly the same case, one time set rhoInf to 3, another time to the actual value of 1.4. Both forceCoeffs got me exactly the same results, regardless of the value of rhoInf.

Is there some bug in OF 2.1.1 or a bug in my understanding of physics?

Force on a patch is F=p*A, drag coefficient is Cd = F / (0.5 rhoInf U^2). Why is there no influence of rho?

Thanks!

Hi Florian,

if the solver is incompressible, the pressure computed by OpenFOAM is p/rho and not p.
Hence, you don't need to know the density to get your coefficient (just divide your pressure force by 0.5*Ue^2 A). :)
You can write anything you want for the density in forceCoeffs, it is not read when computing the coefficients.

Regards,

Joachim

Yeah, that became clear after posting this.

But I'm still riddled why OF requires setting a value of rhoInf. In the source code, as far as I can tell, it's determined by units if p' = p/rho (incompressible) or p' = p.

Regards...

hi Joachim,

I want to ask you how to calculate the value of Cd and Cl ?
by calculating it by dividing pressure force by (0.5*v*v*A),so this mean that results of openfoam for cd and cl are not correct ?