Cylindrical Heat Source CFD Simulation by ANSYS Fluent Tutorial

Description

This simulation is about a cylindrical heat source via ANSYS Fluent software. We perform this CFD project and investigate it by CFD analysis.

In this project, the steady heating process of airflow in a cylindrical geometry is investigated. Airflows in the hollow space between two concentric cylinders while a constant heat source of 252972 W/m³ heats the air.

A solid aluminum cylinder is used as a heat source. Air enters and exits the domain with a temperature equal to 300 K and 1758 K, respectively.

The geometry of the present model is drawn by Design Modeler software. The model is then meshed by ANSYS Meshing software. The model mesh is unstructured, and 1600000 cells have been created.

Cylindrical Heat Source Method

In this simulation, a Heat Source is defined in the cell zone condition to define the heat from the aluminum cylinder body. This heat source indicates that a certain heat value is produced volumetrically per unit of time and is continuously distributed in the computing zone.

Cylindrical Heat Source Conclusion

After simulation, the contours of temperature, velocity, and pressure are obtained. Airflow average velocity at the inlet and outlet is 0.00878484 m/s and 0.0353417 m/s, respectively.

This significant rise in velocity magnitude is due to the reduction of the cross-sectional zone of flow. Air temperature at the inlet and outlet is equal to 300 K and 1759 K, respectively, resulting in a heat transfer rate of 3.4 W/m².

Also, the plot of the fluid temperature along the axial direction of the model has been obtained. The plot shows that the temperature of the fluid is increasing during the model. Also, the maximum temperature increase occurs in the model’s initial areas.