Turbulent Axisymmetric Pipe Flow

Analysis Characteristics

• Steady-state
• 2D internal flow
• Axisymmetric
• Turbulent
• Incompressible

Reference

White, F.M., Fluid Mechanics, McGraw-Hill (1986).

Problem Description

A 2D circular pipe is analyzed to verify the fluid flow and turbulence modeling capabilities of Autodesk® CFD.

The k- turbulence model is used.

The Reynolds number based on the pipe diameter, , is 14,960.

The pressure drop is measured across an interval 50 m downstream of the inlet:

Geometry and Boundary Conditions

Results

Analytical and numerical calculations of pressure drop are compared. The analytical expression for pressure drop from White (1986) is:

• is the Darcy friction factor
• is the mass flow
• is the pipe length across which is measured.

The Darcy friction factor is computed from the Blasius expression:

Using these parameters:

• =50.0m
• =2350
• =14960

in the expressions above, the following results are computed:

	Benchmark	2018: Build 20170308	% Error	2019: Build 20180130	% Error
	4.0e5 Pa	397477.34 Pa	0.63	397477.34 Pa	0.63