Simulation of Turbulent Flow over the Ahmed Body

58:160 Intermediate Mechanics of Fluids

CFD LAB 4

By Tao Xing and Fred Stern

IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering
The University of Iowa
C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory
Iowa City, IA 52242-1585
1. Purpose
The Purpose of CFD Lab 4 is to simulate unsteady turbulent flows over the Ahmed body following
the “CFD process” by an interactive step-by-step approach and conduct verifications using CFD
Educational Interface (FlowLab 1.2). Students will have “hands-on” experiences using FlowLab to
predict drag coefficients and axial velocity for slant angle 25 degrees and compare them with
EFD data. Students will use post-processing tools (streamlines, velocity vectors, contours, animations)
to visualize the mean and instantaneous flow fields and compute the non-dimensional shedding
frequency (Strouhal number). Students will analyze the differences between CFD and EFD and
present results in a CFD Lab report.
Geometry Physics Mesh Solve Report Post-processing

Select
scheme Coarse Steady/
Unsteady? Contours
Mesh Medium
density Time Vectors
Incompres Fine Steps
sible XY plot Viscosity ratio
Density and viscosity Time-step
Flow Verification Streamlines
size
Properties
Laminar
Viscous One Eq. SA Iteration/ Validation
Models Turbulen time step
Two Eq.
Boundary Inviscid k-e Autosave
Conditions frequency
k-w
Initial Convergent
Conditions Limit Residuals
Wall Y plus
Single x/h positions
Ahemd body Modified Velocity
Double Precisions
Modified TKE
1st order Numerical
upwind Schemes Drag history
Geometry 2nd order Unsteady
parameters Lift history
upwind formulation
Pressure coefficient
Quick

Flow Chart for ISTUE Teaching Module for External flow (red color illustrates the options you
will use in CFD Lab 4)

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2. Simulation Design
The problem to be solved is unsteady turbulent flows over the Ahmed body (2D). Reynolds number is
around 768,000 based on inlet velocity and vehicle height (h). The following figure shows the sketch
window you will see in FlowLab with definitions for all geometry parameters. The origin of the
simulation is located at the rear of the body. θ is the slant angle. L is the length of the body and h is the
height of the body. Uniform velocity specified at inlet and constant pressure specified at outlet. The top
boundary of the simulation domain is regarded as “Symmetry” and there is a distance between the car
body and road, GL.

In CFD Lab4, all EFD data for turbulent airfoil flow in this Lab will be provided by the TA and saved
on the Fluids Lab computers.

3. CFD Process
Step 1: (Geometry)

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 1. Ahmed body, slant angle: (25 degrees)
2. Flow domain, upstream length, UL (1 m)
3. Down stream length, DL (6 m)
4. Domain height, DH (3 m)
5. Gap, GL (0.05 m, hard coded)
Click <<Create>>, after you see the Ahmed car body with domain created, click <<Next>>.

Step 2: (Physics)

(1). Material Properties

Use the values shown in the above figure. Input the values and click <<OK>>.

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(2). Viscous Model

In this lab, the two equation (k-ε) model will be used.

(3). Boundary Conditions

At “Inlet”, we use uniform velocity (40 m/s) and zero gradient for pressure. Use default values for
turbulence intensity and viscosity ratio. Here, viscosity ratio is defined as the ratio of turbulence
viscosity and molecular viscosity.

At “Outlet”, pressure is fixed to be atmosphere pressure. Zero gradients are applied for all other
quantities. Read the parameters and click <<OK>>.

For “Ahmed body” or “Road”, FlowLab uses no-slip boundary conditions for velocities and zero-
gradient for pressure. Turbulent quantities (intensity and viscosity ratio) on the Ahmed body and Road
are also specified to be zero. Read all the values and click <<OK>>.

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For “Symmetry” boundary, vertical component of velocity is fixed zero and 1 atm specified for
pressure. Zero gradients are applied for all other quantities. Read the parameters and click <<OK>>.

(4). Initial Conditions

Use the default setup for initial conditions.

After specifying all the above parameters, click the <<Compute>> button and FlowLab will
automatically calculate the Reynolds number based on the inlet velocity and the height of the Ahmed
body you specified. Click <<Next>>. This takes you to the next step, “Mesh”.

Step 3: (Mesh)

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Unstructured Tri. Coarse Meshes will be used in this lab. No manual meshing is available for
this lab due to the complexity of the geometries. After you create the mesh, you should zoom in
regions close to the Ahmed car body and in the wake of the Ahmed car body and think about where
the mesh is refined and why. Click <<Create>> to generate the whole mesh, as per below an
example:

Step 4: (Solve)

In this Lab, only QUICK scheme (2nd order upwind biased) will be used.

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The flow is unsteady, so turn on the “Unsteady” option (default setup). Specify the time steps to be
1400. Time step size is 10-4. Iterations/timestep is the maximum iterations number for each time step.
Specify that to be 50 (note: iterations for each time step will be stopped when either the maximum
iterations number or the convergent limit is reached). “Autosave frequency” is to save solutions by
skipping certain time steps so finally the “saved” solutions at different time steps can be used to
generating animations to visualize the development flow field. “Convergent limit” is set to be 0.001,
considering a lower value could cause tremendous increase of computational costs.

10 axial positions (x/h) can be specified (use the following values:-0.910, -0.389, -0.215, -0.042,
0.132, 0.306, 0.653, 1.000, 1.521, 2.215). These positions will be used to plot time-averaged axial

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velocity and Turbulent Kinetic Energy and be compared with EFD data. Choose “Double precision”,
“Quick scheme” for spatial derivatives and 1st order for unsteady time integration. Here, “Quick
scheme” is a 2nd order upwind biased scheme. Use <<New>> calculation for this Lab. Then click
<<Iterate>> and FlowLab will begin the calculation, whenever you see the window, “Solution
Converged”. Click <<OK>>.

The following is an example of XY plot for residuals (only example)

Step 5: (Reports)
Time averaged drag force FD is found by integrating surface pressure and the shear stress, the
corresponding drag coefficient is computed by:
FD
CD =
1
ρU 2 Ax
2
Where ρ is the fluid (air) density, U is the upstream velocity, Ax is the projected area of the Ahmed
body in x direction. Ck , CB , CS , and CD represent the drag coefficient at the nose, back, the rear slop
and the total, respectively (read reference 1 for Ahmed car on class website for more details).

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XY plots provide you the ability to plot the time-averaged quantities (note: time-averaged quantities
are computed automatically by FlowLab after each simulation), including “residuals”, “Wall Yplus
distribution”, “Pressure coefficient distribution”, “Drag history”, “Lift history”, “Profiles of axial
velocity”, and “Profiles of TKE”.

In this Lab, CFD results will be compared with EFD data for slant angle equals 25 degrees. EFD data
for axial velocity [(mean-x-velocity/120)+ (x/0.288)], Modified_u_slant25.xy, can be downloaded
from class website.

The following figure shows an example for axial velocity, for both EFD and CFD using k-ε model
(your results could be different from it).

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It is possible to modify the style of the curves by clicking “curves”, selecting a curve with the right
button and the clicking on “change style”. For this lab, it is recommended to use lines (without
symbols) for CFD and symbols (solid circles) for EFD data.
NOTE: 1. For time history of the total drag coefficient, you need change the range of x and y
coordinates to appropriate values. One example is shown below.

Step 6: (Post-processing)
Use the “contour”, “vector” buttons to show pressure contours and velocity vectors. The following
figures are some sample results (contour of pressure, velocity vectors, and streamlines). To plot
streamlines, you can use “lines” for “stream function” under either “contour” or “streamlines” with
appropriate ranges of maximum and minimum values.

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To create animations for contour of viscosity ratio, activate the contour plot for viscosity ratio, and
click <<Edit>>, then turn on “animate between time step” and specify the “start time step” and “end
time step”. Click <<Apply>>, the animation will be shown in the window, you can use <<Alt+print
screen>> to save several frames and post it into word. By now, FlowLab can not automatically create
“*avi” file, so do NOT click the <<Generate movie>> button. You can use similar approach to create
animations for streamlines.

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4. Exercises
You need to complete the following assignments and present results in your lab reports following the
lab report instructions.
Simulation of Turbulent Flow over the Ahmed Body
• You can save each case file for each exercise using “file”Æ “save as”
• Otherwise stated, use the parameters shown in the instruction.

1. Simulation of turbulent flows over Ahmed body (slant angle=25 degree):

Use 25 degrees for slant angle to create the geometry, create “Tri Coarse” mesh, and run the
simulation with time steps 1400. NOTE: This simulation could take up to 3 hours.
1.1. Fill in the table for the four drag coefficients and compute the relative error between CFD and
EFD (Ahmed data), EFD data for Ck , CB , and Cs can be found from the figure below. Where
Ck = Ck* , CB = CB* , and Cs = Cs* . The definitions of the drag coefficients are: Ck is the
forebody pressure drag coefficient, CB is the vertical based pressure drag coefficient, CR is the
friction drag coefficient, Cs is the slant surface pressure drag coefficient, and Cw = CD is the
total drag coefficient. So, Cw = CD = CS + CB + Ck + CR

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 Ck CB CS CD
Ahmed (EFD) 0.289
k-e
Error (%)

1.2. Questions:
1.2.1. Do you observe separations in the wake region (use streamlines)? If yes, where is the
location of separation point?
1.2.2. What is the Strouhal number based on the shedding frequency (CD vs. time), the height
of the Ahmed body and the inlet velocity? Note: the shedding frequency f=1/T where T
is the typical period of the oscillation of CD that can be evaluated using the peaks
between 0.1<time<0.14.
• Figures to be saved: 1. XY plots for residual history, axial velocity vs. x/h (with EFD),
TKE vs. x/h and time history of drag coefficient, 2. Contour of pressure, contour of axial
velocity and velocity vectors, 3. 3 or 4 snapshots of animations for turbulent-viscosity-ratio
and streamlines (hints: you can use <<Alt+print Screen>> during the play of the
animations).
• Data to be saved: the above table with values.

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