Turbulent Pipe Flow

We present an analysis of turbulent flow in a straight pipe depicted in the animation and pressure drop diagram above. Although this problem can be solved more efficiently using 2-D axisymmetric elements, we used 3-D elements as a demonstration. The elements used are 8-node FCBI (Flow Condition Based Interpolation) and the turbulence model is the standard k-epsilon.

The pressure drop results from ADINA and the analytical/empirical solution are compared; please see the graph below. We see that the new FCBI elements are able to accurately predict the analytical/empirical results over a wide range of Reynolds numbers using the same relatively coarse mesh depicted under the graph.