Comparison of different CFD software performances in the case of an incompressible air flow through a straight conical diffuser

Abstract

Numerical flow simulations have been carried out in order to analyze the possi-bilities of numerical prediction of a steady-state incompressible air flow through a conical diffuser named Azad diffuser. The spreading angle of this diffuser is 8° and it has cylindrical parts of the constant diameter in the inlet and outlet flow zones. Numerical analysis has been performed by the use of the standard k-ε tur-bulence model. The simulations have been performed using the Ansys CFX and the OpenFOAM software for cases of 2-D and 3-D computational domains. In both cases a fully developed turbulent flow at the inlet section of diffuser is pre-sent. The numerical flow simulation in a 2-D computational domain has been performed under the assumption of an axisymmetric flow in the diffuser. Numeri-cally obtained results have been compared with experimental data. Results ob-tained with these two softwares have also been mutually compared. At the end the results obtained by CFD for the cases of 2-D and 3-D computational domains have been mutually compared, and the advantages and disadvantages of per-forming numerical simulations under the assumption of an axisymmetric flow in the diffuser have been analyzed.