Renewable Energy CFD Training Package, Beginner

Renewable Energy – ANSYS Fluent Training Package, 10 Practical Exercises and CFD Simulation for Beginner Users

Renewable Energy CFD Training Package, including 10 different practical exercises for BEGINNER users, insets Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods and materials for designing, simulating, and dissecting applied and Renewable engineering CFD projects, with practical experiments using ANSYS Fluent software.

On successful completion of this course you will be able to:

• Assemble and evaluate the different components of the CFD process in the renewable engineering field, since we simulate place a wide range of various CFD projects in this training package.
• Explain the suitable CFD methods for many renewable energy CFD simulations and how to solve them computationally,
• Compare and contrast various methods for simulating turbulent flows applicable to civil and mechanical engineering, especially offshore, solar, and wind renewable energy applications such as wind turbines, tidal turbines, solar collectors, and so on.
• Set up simulations and evaluate a practical problem using a commercial CFD package (ANSYS Fluent),
• Design CFD modeling studies of renewable energy devices.

Training Package

Lots of projects in the Renewable Energy engineering field are simulated by ANSYS Fluent software using CFD methods.

Study number 1 deals with heat transfer within a pipe carrying water flow in a parabolic solar collector. In fact, in the present model, there is a water flow in a pipe that has been exposed to solar radiation. Behind the tube, there is a parabolic plate as the solar radiation absorber plate, which is responsible for absorbing the solar radiation energy and then reflecting it.

In simulation number 2, we model a solar chimney. The lower part of the chimney is a plate to absorb the heat of the solar radiation, which we assume it as a constant temperature in the present simulation. The ground floor below this chimney also has a constant temperature.

In project number 3, the airflow inside a dry cooling tower (HELLER) is simulated and analyzed. A dry cooling tower is used as a means of indirect heat transfer between the working fluid (water) and the coolant (air). In a thermal plant, the working fluid (water) exits the condensers and then is pumped into a ring of heat exchangers. These heat exchangers are air-cooled, which means that they are cooled by natural air suction caused by a temperature difference between the inside and the outside of the cooling tower. In practical exercise number 4, the transient simulation of the Heller cooling tower is investigated. Heller cooling tower is an indirect heat exchanging mechanism in which airflow over the water stream and heat exchange process density decreases, and an upward flow is generated. In the present work, an ideal gas model is used for air density modeling.

Study number 5 deals with the airflow on the HAWT blades so the purpose of the problem is to study the distribution of velocity and pressure on the surface of the blades and on their body. There are three areas around the blades for airflow. There is an area around the blades, an area in the front of the blades, and an area behind the blades. Problem number 6 is simulating the HVAC inside the room considering a solar chimney. The present model consists of two main parts, including the interior of the room and a sloping solar chimney on the ceiling of the room. The solar chimney consists of glass plates on its side surfaces that are in contact with the environment and, as a transparent medium, receive the solar energy and also have a plate on its back as a heat-absorbing surface.

In project number 7, heat transfer in a conical solar collector containing water fluid is simulated and analyzed. The cubic computational domain consists of an inlet (velocity inlet type, 1m/s) and a pressure outlet. The conical collector consists of an inlet (mass-flow type, 0.0116 Kg/s) and a pressure outlet. In practical exercise number 8, using PCM encapsulated in a water tank solar heater has been investigated with different considerations, including the effect of melting and freezing temperature of PCM material, the effect of PCM material volume, and a comparison with no PCM material. The PCM inner wall is considered a wall with a temperature condition of 603.3 K and a thickness of 0.0015 m. For the outer wall of this space, the wall boundary condition with the adiabatic condition is used.

In project number 9, steady airflow in the presence of an H-type wind turbine is investigated. Nowadays, turbines are a reliable, clean energy source, which generates electricity using the induced rotation by wind flow. However, turbine wind farms face challenging issues such as low efficiency at lower diameters for horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT), disruption of natural view of valleys, and low wind conditions. Finally, practical exercise number 10 is going to simulate an airflow field adjacent to the Liam F1 wind turbine as the last product of this training package. The geometry included a rotary zone for the turbine walls and a stationary zone for the rest of the domain. The inlet is considered 3 m/s and the turbine zone is rotating with 300 RPM.