Hi everybody,

I looking to buying a commercial software (get a licence) to model the following problem: 1) Put water in a 100 mL flask 2) Put the flask on a shaker that shakes the flask to and fro along one direction.

Note, free surface is present. Which software do you suggest? 1) Fidap 2) Fluent 3) CFX The first 2 have the Volume of Fluid (VOF) module that seems appealing. But it could be a marketing pitch.

Regards,

Michel

Michel C. Boufadel, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Environmental Engineering Temple University

http://www.iccm.de

you will find out the strong capability of commnet s/w.

It is really strong in case of flow analysis including the free surface.

regards,

Michel,

I work for CFD Research Corporation, developers of CFD-ACE+. I recently finished a quick 2D demo of the sloshing of fluid in a tank due to seismic loads. We're expecting a PO to do the problem in 3D. I can send you a copy of the 2D animations if you'd like.

This particular simulation also included the stress in the tank structure along with the VOF free surface calculation.

Regards, Alton

Michel,

Can I recommend that you look at

http://www.flow3d.com/ ?

Flow-3d is the product of Flow Science Inc., the company founded and still managed by Dr. C. W. (Tony) Hirt, who invented the vof technique. They're located in Los Alamos, NM.

I have used Flow-3D for a variety of problems, including free surface simulations, and was very well pleased with the support I got from the staff. As you will see from their web page, they specialize in free surface solutions, including waves, ink jet simulations, casting, etc. The code was built from the start with free surface calculations in mind. They have a version of Flow-3d available to run on PC's as well as work station and main frame versions.

For the record, I am not related in any way to Flow Science, especially not financially.

Good luck!

If you really move you flask like in a shaker your free surface is destroyed an you get a lots of very small bubbles or foam. Then the VOF method might fail to produce usefull results.

Thank you all. Regarding bubbles (and turbulence). I will start first with laminar flow. I understand that I will have to deal with turbulence and bubles later on.

Regards,

Michel

Yet another way is a direct density advection scheme. It seems me, such scheme is realized in the code COMET of Prof. Peric, Hamburg, Institut fuer Schiffbau. I am afraid, for bubbly flows this is the only way if it is impossible to follow dynamics of each bubble accurately.

With best regards