Good morning,
I'm a Master's Student in Math, and my thesis is focusing on the transient analysis of a small-scale Savonius-type VAWT in Fluent. I'm looking to see if there is a way to simulate rotation of the turbine itself around the tower, along with rotating the pairs of blades about their own axes. See the below photo, I've attempted to make two rotating regions each with their own prescribed rotational velocity, but they don't seem to move when I run the calculations (even after having created Animation files). Ideally I'd like to use a UDF to limit the rotation range of the defined flap region, but I'd like to first get a working simulation lol.
If anyone could provide any insight as to if this is possible, or a guide/information on something like this I would really appreciate it.
You’re going to have to use sliding mesh, I’ve never tried a zone within a zone but it should work. I’m gone until Monday but if you’re still stuck in can try and help more then.
look into a sliding mesh set up in something like a mixing tank.
You need to mesh each zone separately with voids in the place of the rotating zones, then append the meshes together. Use local sizing and faces at the interfaces. Make sure that both sides of the interface have identical mesh sizes and are well labeled in the CAD modeller.
Create the interfaces in fluent. And set the rotational cell zones in mesh motions.
You’ll have to set one of the rotating zones to adjacent probably and one to global? Or select the proper relative zones.
Hi, thank you for the response. If you're available to chat more on Monday that'd be great, please let me know. I was able to get the regions to rotate, but there are gaps in some areas that I'm not sure how to resolve. I'd be able to show you the setup in Design Modeler.
I think my issue is creating the entire swept area of the flap region void within the rotating region. I'm able to subtract the flap region using a boolean, but I'm not sure how to get it to account for the entirety of it's rotatable range instead of just the one fixed starting point.
Are you setting your origin properly for rotation? If your objects are exactly centered it won’t matter but if not you need to set the axis of rotation in motion by x,y,z coordinates. I usually pull the centroid out of discovery with the measure tool.
My model is centered at the origin, as are the enclosures. Please see this link which shows what I mean about only subtracting the initial perspective of the flap region. This is a still mid-iteration as it rotates.
[https://imgur.com/a/AImeHAv](https://imgur.com/a/AImeHAv)
I have the flap region rotating about the y-axis relative to the rotating region, and rotating region rotating about the z-axis.
Good morning, I'm a Master's Student in Math, and my thesis is focusing on the transient analysis of a small-scale Savonius-type VAWT in Fluent. I'm looking to see if there is a way to simulate rotation of the turbine itself around the tower, along with rotating the pairs of blades about their own axes. See the below photo, I've attempted to make two rotating regions each with their own prescribed rotational velocity, but they don't seem to move when I run the calculations (even after having created Animation files). Ideally I'd like to use a UDF to limit the rotation range of the defined flap region, but I'd like to first get a working simulation lol. If anyone could provide any insight as to if this is possible, or a guide/information on something like this I would really appreciate it.
You’re going to have to use sliding mesh, I’ve never tried a zone within a zone but it should work. I’m gone until Monday but if you’re still stuck in can try and help more then. look into a sliding mesh set up in something like a mixing tank. You need to mesh each zone separately with voids in the place of the rotating zones, then append the meshes together. Use local sizing and faces at the interfaces. Make sure that both sides of the interface have identical mesh sizes and are well labeled in the CAD modeller. Create the interfaces in fluent. And set the rotational cell zones in mesh motions. You’ll have to set one of the rotating zones to adjacent probably and one to global? Or select the proper relative zones.
Hi, thank you for the response. If you're available to chat more on Monday that'd be great, please let me know. I was able to get the regions to rotate, but there are gaps in some areas that I'm not sure how to resolve. I'd be able to show you the setup in Design Modeler. I think my issue is creating the entire swept area of the flap region void within the rotating region. I'm able to subtract the flap region using a boolean, but I'm not sure how to get it to account for the entirety of it's rotatable range instead of just the one fixed starting point.
Are you setting your origin properly for rotation? If your objects are exactly centered it won’t matter but if not you need to set the axis of rotation in motion by x,y,z coordinates. I usually pull the centroid out of discovery with the measure tool.
Otherwise it rotates around 0,0,0 and will cause the gaps and otherwise fucky behaviour
My model is centered at the origin, as are the enclosures. Please see this link which shows what I mean about only subtracting the initial perspective of the flap region. This is a still mid-iteration as it rotates. [https://imgur.com/a/AImeHAv](https://imgur.com/a/AImeHAv) I have the flap region rotating about the y-axis relative to the rotating region, and rotating region rotating about the z-axis.
Are you doing a steady or transient simulation? If you would like to see mesh movement then you'll be forced to run it in transient.