I have a project in which I need to model the 3D behavior of water tumbling into the mouth of an irregularly shaped funnel before flowing out as a full-bore flow through the other end. I would be grateful for advice on suitable software packages (commercial or otherwise) and also what special features such software must have in order to realistically model the behaviour of the water.

Thanks

You might want to look at the Flow Science website,

http://www.flow3d.com .

Flow Science is a sponser of this website (cfd-online) and publisher of Flow3d.

There's a 3-d simulation of the flush of a toilet that you can click on the website. A quixotic - but effective - demonstration of the capabilities of that particular code.

CFD-ACE+, a commercially available code from CFD Research Corporation (www.cfdrc.com), has what you need to accomplish the simulation. It is a general purpose CFD code that has a free surface or VOF(volume of fluid) model. Therefore it is capable of solving for the motion of the liquid and gas phases while resolving the free surface (including surface tension forces). Since it is a general purpose CFD code it could also be used for other applications such as conjugate heat transfer, internal/external flow of liquids and gases, chemical reactions (such as combustion or surface reactions), plus much more. Check out the inkjet application page to see the free surface modeling in action! http://www.cfdrc.com/datab/Applicati...jet/index.html

Michael Showalter