Effect of mesh refinement on vertical and lateral velocity profiles of the wake flow behind a spire based on cfd

• Main Authors: Fitriady, Muhammad Arifuddin, Nurizzatul Atikha, Rahmat, Ahmad Faiz, Mohammad
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General); TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery; TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics
• Online Access: http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/37123/1/Effect%20of%20mesh%20refinement%20on%20vertical%20and%20lateral%20velocity%20profiles%20of%20the%20wake%20flow%20behind%20a%20spire%20based%20on%20cfd.pdf; http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/37123/; https://ncon-pgr.ump.edu.my/index.php/en/?option=com_fileman&view=file&routed=1&name=E-BOOK%20NCON%202022%20.pdf&folder=E-BOOK%20NCON%202022&container=fileman-files
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah

The application of CFD to simulate the phenomenon based on a wind tunnel experiment has been widely studied. A large number of cells may produce accurate results but requires a high computational load. In this study, the effect of mesh refinement on the vertical and lateral velocity profiles of the wake flow behind a single spire is discussed. Three different mesh refinement levels, i.e. coarse, medium and fine, each with 9 million, 12.7 million, and 16.9 million cells, respectively, were applied to the computational domain. The standard k-ε model was used for CFD simulations. The variable mesh was generated by using blockMesh and snappyHexMesh features in the OpenFoam® software. The result shows no significant difference between the various mesh refinement levels for the velocity profiles. However, there is a significant difference in the time needed to complete the iteration for each case whereby the shortest duration was taken for the coarse mesh.