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Module 10: Transient Flow Modeling

ANSYS Fluent Getting Started – Part 2

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 Introduction
Lecture Theme:
Performing a transient calculation is in some was similar to performing a steady state
calculation, but there are additional considerations. More data is generated and extra inputs
are required. This lecture will explain these inputs and describe transient data postprocessing

Learning Aims:
You will learn:
• How to set up and run transient calculations in Fluent
• How to choose the appropriate time step size for your calculation
• How to postprocess transient data and make animations

Learning Objectives:
Transient flow calculations are becoming increasingly common due to advances in high
performance computing (HPC) and reductions in hardware costs. You will understand what
transient calculations involve and be able to perform them with confidence.
Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Motivation
Nearly all flows in nature are unsteady!
• Steady-state assumption is possible if we:
– Ignore unsteady fluctuations
– Employ ensemble/time-averaging to remove unsteadiness
• this is what is done in modeling RANS turbulence
In CFD, steady-state methods are preferred
• Lower computational cost
• Easier to post-process and analyze
Many applications require resolution of unsteady flow:
• Aerodynamics (aircraft, land vehicles, etc.) – vortex shedding
• Rotating Machinery – rotor/stator interaction, stall, surge
• Multiphase Flows – free surfaces, bubble dynamics
• Deforming Domains – in-cylinder combustion, store separation
• Unsteady Heat Transfer – transient heating and cooling
• Many more …

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Origins of Unsteady Flow

• Natural unsteadiness
– Unsteady flow due to growth of instabilities within the fluid or a non-equilibrium initial fluid state
– Examples: natural convection flows, turbulent eddies of all scales, fluid waves (gravity waves,
shock waves)
• Forced unsteadiness
– Time-dependent boundary conditions, source terms drive the unsteady flow field
– Examples: pulsing flow in a nozzle, rotor-stator interaction in a turbine stage

Kelvin-Helmholtz Rotor-Stator Interaction

Cloud Instability in an Axial Compressor
Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Unsteady CFD Analysis

Simulate a transient flow field over a specified time period

• Solution may approach:
– Steady-state solution – Flow variables stop changing with time
– Time-periodic solution – Flow variables fluctuate with repeating pattern
• Your goal may also be simply to analyze the flow over a prescribed time interval
– Free surface flows,
– Moving shock waves,
– …

Extract quantities of interest

• Natural frequencies (e.g. Strouhal Number)
• Time-averaged and/or RMS values
• Time-related parameters (e.g. time required to cool a hot solid, residence time of a pollutant)
• Spectral data – Fourier Transform (FT)

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Unsteady CFD Analysis

• Transient simulations are solved by computing Time steps = 2 s

a solution for many discrete points in time Initial Time = 0 s
• At each time point we must iterate to the Total Time = 20 s
solution
Residual

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Time (seconds)
Several iterations per time step
Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Selecting the Transient Time Step Size

• The time step size is an important parameter in transient simulations

– t must be small enough to resolve time-dependent features …
True solution Time step too large to resolve transient changes
- Note the solution points generally will not lie on the true
solution because the true behaviour has not been resolved
Variable of
interest

t
Time

Variable of A smaller time step can

interest resolve the true solution
- At least, 10-20 t per period
t
Time
Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Convergence Behavior

• Residual plots for transient simulations are

not always indicative of a converged
solution
• You should select the time step size such
that the residuals reduce by around three
orders of magnitude within one time step
– This will ensure accurate resolution of
transient behavior
– For smaller time steps, residuals may only
drop by 1-2 orders of magnitude - look for a
monotonic decrease throughout the time Typical residual plot for a simple
step transient calculation

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Selecting the Transient Time Step Size
• … and it must be small enough to maintain solver stability
– The quantity of interest may be changing very slowly (e.g. temperature in a solid),
but you may not be able to use a large time step if other quantities (e.g. velocity)
have smaller timescales

• The Courant Number is often used to estimate a time step:

Characteristic flow velocity  t

Courant Number 
Typical Cell Size
– This gives the number of mesh elements the fluid passes through in one time step
– Typical values are 1 – 10, but in some cases higher values are acceptable

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Selecting the Transient Time Step Size

• Tips & Tricks for the estimation of the time step:

• Usual Case : t 
1 L
. L = Characteristic length
3 V
– restrictive but safe for convergence with L=cell characteristic size
V = Characteristic velocity
1 Number of Blades
• Turbomachinery : t  .
10 Rotational Velocity
L
• Natural Convection : t 
(g.  . T.L)1/2

L2
• Conduction in solids : t 
  

  .Cp 

 

• A smaller time step will typically improve convergence

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Transient Flow Modeling Workflow

Similar set-up as steady-state simulation, then:

1. Enable the unsteady solver
2. Set up physical models and boundary conditions as usual
– Transient boundary conditions are possible – you can use either a UDF or profile to
accomplish this
3. Prescribe initial conditions
– Best to use a physically realistic initial condition, such as a steady solution
4. Assign solver settings and configure solution monitors
5. Configure animations and data output/sampling options
6. Select time step and max iterations per time step
7. Prescribe the number of time steps
8. Run the calculations (Iterate)
Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Enabling the Transient Solver

• To enable the unsteady solver, choose Transient in the Solver group of the
Setting Up Physics tab in the ribbon

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Set Up Time Step Size

• Set the time step size in Run Calculation

– This controls the spacing in time between the solution points
• Set the number of time steps in Run Calculation
– This controls the spacing in time between the solution points
• Click Advanced … to open the Run Calculation task
page and choose additional options such as number
of iterations per time step

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Solution Methods for Transient Simulation

• "Transient Formulation" defines the

numerical algorithm for the transient
term
– First Order Implicit is the default because it is more
stable
– For problems with higher accuracy requirements, it
is recommended to change this setting to Bounded
Second Order Implicit

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Initialization
• Physically realistic initial conditions should be
used
– A converged steady state solution is often used as the
starting point
• If a transient simulation is started from an

Residuals
approximate initial guess, the initial transient
results will not be accurate
– The first few time steps may not converge
– A smaller time step may be needed initially to maintain
solver stability
– For cyclic behavior the first few cycles can be ignored
until a repeatable pattern is obtained 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Time (seconds)
Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Tips for Success in Transient Flow Modeling

• With the pressure-based solver, use PISO scheme for Pressure-

Velocity Coupling – this scheme provides faster convergence
for unsteady flows than the standard SIMPLE approach

• Select the number of iterations per time step to be around 20

– it is usually better to reduce the time step size than to do too many iterations per
time step

• Remember that accurate initial conditions are as important as

boundary conditions for unsteady problems
– initial conditions should always be physically realistic!

• To iterate without advancing in time, specify zero time steps

– This will instruct the solver to converge the current time step only

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Summary

• When solving any unsteady flow problem in Fluent

– The time step size will be determined by the minimum of
• The value at which the solution will converge
• The value needed to resolve mean flow physical time scales (e.g. vortex shedding frequency given by
Strouhal number) and/or turbulent eddies (Courant number <= 1)
– The solution must converge at every time step
• Non-convergence within the very first steps may be acceptable when there is a non-physical initial
condition
• If the solution is not converging, it is almost always more efficient to reduce the time step size
– Solution monitors are an important tool for ensuring the solution is correct
• Watch out for physically unrealistic behavior of monitored variables
– The Bounded Second Order transient formulation is almost always preferred

Introduction Unsteady Flow Time Step Setup Summary

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 Appendix

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 It is generally not intended for the instructor to present material in the
appendix.

It is intended for use as supplementary material that can be used to

help answer certain questions or to provide additional background
material for people interested in the topic.

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 Non-iterative Time Advancement
• Non-iterative Time Advancement
(NITA) is available for faster
computation time
– NITA runs about 2x to 10x as fast as ITA scheme

• Limitations: Available with the

pressure-based solver only
– NITA schemes are not available for radiation
models (except S2S), mixture multiphase model,
DPM, UDS transport, porous jump boundary
condition, etc.

• Consult the Fluent Documentation for

additional details

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 Non-iterative Time Advancement

- NITA scheme reduce the splitting error to O(Δt2) by

using sub-iterations per time step

Overall time- Truncation Splitting error

discretization error for = +
error: O(t2) (due to eqn
2nd-order scheme: segregation):
O(t2) O(tn)

- Two flavors of NITA schemes available

- PISO (NITA/PISO)
- Fractional-step method (NITA/FSM)
About 20% cheaper than NITA/PISO on a per time-step
basis

ITA NITA
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 Unsteady Flow Modeling Options
• Adaptive Time Stepping
– Automatically adjusts time-step size
based on local truncation error analysis
– Customization possible via UDF

• Extrapolate Variables
– Speed up the transient solution by reducing required sub-iteration
• Using Taylor series expansion solution will be extrapolated to
the next time level to improve the predicted initial value

• Data Sampling for Time Statistics

– Particularly useful for LES turbulence calculations

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 Unsteady Flow Modeling – Animations
• Another method in Fluent is available
which makes use of the Execute
Commands feature

• Text commands or macros can be defined

which are executed by the solver at
prescribed iteration or time step intervals

• This approach is very useful in creating

high-quality animations of CFD results
– A command is defined which generates an animation
frame (contour plot, vector plot, etc.) and then writes
that frame to a hard copy file.
– Third-party software can then be used to link the hard
copy files into an animation file (AVI, MPG, GIF, etc.)

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 Unsteady Flow Modeling – Animations
You must set up any animations BEFORE performing iterations
• Animation frames are written/stored on-the-fly during calculations

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 CFD-Post: Dynamic Text Objects

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 CFD-Post: Typical Keyframe Animation Procedure
1. Timestep Selector load the first time step
2. Create necessary plots and position the view
3. Create the first Keyframe
4. Load the last time step
5. If necessary change the plots and the view
6. Create the second Keyframe
7. Select the first Keyframe and set the # of Frames
• This is the # of Frames in between the first and second
Keyframes
• If we have a total of 100 time steps, then setting # of
Frames to 98 will produce a total of 100 frames (98
plus first, plus last) and therefore 1 frame per time In this example the first and second Keyframes used a
step different view position and the Transparency of the
8. Set the Movie options Plane was changed from 0 to 1. The changes between
Keyframes are interpolated gradually over each
9. Rewind to the first Keyframe and click Play animation frame

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 CFD-Post: Transient Charts

• XY – Transient or Sequence
– Plots an expression (usually Time) versus a
variable at a point locator
– Typically used to show the transient
variation of a variable at a point
• Unless the data from every time step is
saved and loaded into CFD-Post, create
a point surface in Fluent and write the
data at every time step
• If desired, the data in the Fluent
monitor output file can be plotted
in a CFD-Post chart

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 CFD-Post: Fourier Transform
• FT can be applied to signals to extract frequency data
FT of Signal Showing
Dominant Frequency

Original Signal

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 CFD-Post: Timestep Selector
• Transient results can also be post-
processed in CFD-Post.
– You need to instruct Fluent when to export data
(every n time steps)
– Otherwise, by default, Fluent does not write any data
to disk during the solution, and interim results will be
forgotten.
– So in Fluent, under ‘Calculation Activities’, select
‘Autosave’
– In CFD Post, select the last results file, then tick “Load
Complete History as a Single Case”
– The clock icon will open up a window from where you
can select the desired time step

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 Transient Animations in CFD-Post
To create animations:
• Load a transient data set
• Collection of data files saved at regular intervals
in a transient simulation
• Either regular .dat files from autosaving or .cdat
files from automatic export
• .cdat files allow choice of what variables to
saved, reducing i/o time and file size
• Create objects such as vectors or contours
• Select the Timestep icon in the toolbar
• In Timestep Selector, select the Animation icon
• Opens the Animation panel
• Click the play button
• All visible objects will be animated

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