Computational Comparison of Laminar and Turbulent Flow Erosion

Overview

Objectives/Goals The purpose of this project is to numerically determine the difference between laminar (smooth) flow and turbulent (chaotic) flow erosion. Methods/Materials This research consists of two parts, a numerical simulation using ANSYS Fluent Student Edition and an experiment to collect data to validate the simulation results. The experimental approach was comprised of laminar and turbulent water flow in a straight pipe washing away a chocolate coating. For the numerical simulations, a model was representative of the experimental apparatus and flow conditions was created and exercised. Results From the simulations, the wall shear calculations were compared to the erosion rates observed experimentally. Based upon the simulation results, the shear from turbulent flow was significantly higher than that for laminar flow indicating higher erosion. Conclusions/Discussion The results were consistent with the experimental results and showed a computation comparison is valid and can be applied to more complicated flows.

Awards (1)

• Fourth Place

Competition history

• CSEF 2018 Aerodynamics/ Hydrodynamics (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0125

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Physics and Astronomy projects
• CSEF Physics and Astronomy projects
• Every CSEF 2018 project
• CSEF Fourth Place winners