Why the outlet pressure is set fixedValue = zero? It should be zeroGradient.

Thank you Sukanta.

I changed the pressure boundary condition as the following:

Now the overall flow field is more reasonable but the velocity is too high at some points and I still have some strange feature (see pic attached).

What do you think?


Thank you!

If the velocity is specified at the inlet, usually we take the case that outlet is at atmospheric pressure.
Since we use relative scale for pressure, we assume the atmospheric pressure is zero.
The outlet is to be set to zero if it is at atmospheric pressure.
If you get a pressure below zero, its less than atmospheric pressure.

I hope I am correct.

But why inlet is fixed at zero now? Change in to zeroGradient

You have 30 m/s constant flow. Just tell me one thing if U at inlet is 30 m/s and Pressure is zero in that patch...is it consistent?

I am not able to make the mesh given in this case since I use OF-1.7.x.
But from blockMeshDict I can say there is something wrong with naming the patches.
I guess in this case the patches inlet and outlet are swapped. But I am not sure.

:)
If the inlet is set to some velocity, say 30 m/s, the pressure is set to zeroGradient.
Also if the outlet is set to be with a pressure ( fixedValue )of zero , then the inlet
should be zeroGradient. I do this in my cases and I get good results

I do not think the pressure specified in the solver is relative. So u should either keep it floating or keep the absolute pressure.

The solver uses Gauge pressure - reference to the atmospheric pressure- where atmospheric pressure is zero. In absolute pressures negative value is not possible(except in some cases like trees). But in our simulation we get negative pressures all the time. So it cannot be absolute pressure. whatever we do in normal CFD(everyday) is Gauge pressure.

Hope this helps

1. I had to change the inlet condition also because otherwise I got an error which basically said that the solver couldn't find any reference cell for pressure.

2. Pressure is relative, so (I think) you can have 30m/s velocity with 0 pressure because that mean that the pressure s the same as ambient static pressure

3. Inlet and outlet are fine, just checked them in paraview.

4. I ran the simulation for another 1000 iterations and the strange behavior underlined in previous pic disappeared but I'm still getting way too high velocity…

@lovecraft22

Why is there a zero velocity line (vertical streak of blue)at the inlet? is it due to your boundary conditions?

its because the velocity = 30 m/s at inlet.

what is the outlet velocity boundary in this case?

May be you can have a look at my simulation -> see attached pic

That's my inlet condition: he velocity is not 0 but 30m/s.

About the outlet, the velocity is around 3000 m/s!!
It's an hypersonic cylinder!

what boundary condition you are using for outlet?

Also what pRefValue you are using?

Could you upload your boundary conditions?

Thank you!

Try these boundary settings

for pressure

inlet
{
type freestreamPressure;
}

outlet
{
type freestreamPressure;
}

for velocity

inlet
{
type freestream;
freestreamValue uniform (30 0 0);
}

outlet
{
type freestream;
freestreamValue uniform (30 0 0);
}

You have to define one pressure value at least.

I set the pressure value to 0 at the inlet and the rest as you suggested.
Now it's running, let's see what comes out.

Oops i thought you are just doing low velocity simulations.

which solver you use for hypersonic flows?

I was just kidding about the fact that though I'm running a low velocity simulation yet I get an hypersonic velocity at the outlet…

Lol... :D

Which version of OF are you using?

OpenFoam 2.0.0