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Example of A Free Surface Simulation

The document summarizes a free surface simulation of water flowing between two reservoirs separated by a retaining wall with a gate cutout. The left reservoir starts full while the right is empty. The simulation models the water leveling out between the reservoirs over time as governed by gravity and the free surface physics enabled. Key steps include setting up the geometry of the reservoirs and gate, assigning water material, applying initial and boundary conditions, meshing, specifying the free surface and gravity, running a transient solve over 1400 time steps, and viewing the animated results of the filling process.

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Gerry
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25 views4 pages

Example of A Free Surface Simulation

The document summarizes a free surface simulation of water flowing between two reservoirs separated by a retaining wall with a gate cutout. The left reservoir starts full while the right is empty. The simulation models the water leveling out between the reservoirs over time as governed by gravity and the free surface physics enabled. Key steps include setting up the geometry of the reservoirs and gate, assigning water material, applying initial and boundary conditions, meshing, specifying the free surface and gravity, running a transient solve over 1400 time steps, and viewing the animated results of the filling process.

Uploaded by

Gerry
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Example of a Free Surface Simulation

At the start of this example, the reservoir on the left is full, and the one on the right is empty. The
reservoirs are separated by a retaining wall with a gate cut-out
cut out to allow water to pass between the
reservoirs.

Geometry:: The two reservoirs and the pass-through


pass through gate were created as separate parts in the CAD
system.

Materials:: Water is assigned to all three parts.

Boundary Conditions:: There are no inlets or outlets because the flow is contained within the
domain. No boundary conditions are applied. Note that a pressure condition is automatically applied
at the liquid-air
air interface, so it is not necessary to apply an additional pressure boundary condition in
this model.
Initial Conditions:: Because the reservoir on the left starts
starts full of water, apply the HOF initial condition
to it.

Mesh Sizing:: Use Automatic Sizing, but refine the mesh where the air and water will interact. In this
case, that is primarily in the gate and in the right-side
right
reservoir.

Solve:

On the Physics tab of the Solve dialog, click Free surface, and check Enable free surface.
surface

Specify a gravity vector. In this case, gravity acts


a
in the -Z
Z direction, so set the Earth gravity
directional unit vector to 0,0,-1.
0,0,

On the Control tab, the Solution Mode is automatically set to Transient, and the Time Step Size
is automatically set to 0.01.

If you wish to animate the results, specify a value for Save Intervals > Results.
Results

Specify the number of time steps (1400 were used for this simulation), and click Solve.

Results:

To view the shape of the flow, right click off the model, and click Free Surface.
Surface

To animate the filling process, right


right click off the model, and Animation. On the Animation dialog,
click Animate, and the Play button. (If you do not specify a value for results Save Intervals, you
will only be able to see the last time step in the simulation.

As you can see, the water flows from the left reservoir into the right reservoir until the water level in
the two is the same.

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