SimWorks course
Congratulations for having installed SimWorks, this course includes a collection of guides and tutorials to bring you up to speed with the software. This course is intended for people who are new to SimWorks and covers from the basic commands to the most advanced features. Each section has specific goals and a rough estimate of the time required to complete it. We think that the full course can be completed in a total time of 3 working days.
Introduction to SimWorks (4hrs) – have an overview of the GUI and become capale of running simple external and internal aerodynamics simulations
Industrial applications (2hrs) – how to use SimWorks in simple industrial applications to derive forces or calculate aerodynamic coefficients
Multiple simulations (4hrs) – SimWorks supports multiple and concurrent simulations with advanced capabilities
Import your geometries and advanced analysis (4hrs) – how to import in SimWorks your geometries and carry out advanced analysis using Paraview
Advanced functionalities (12hrs) – overview of SimWorks most advanced functionalities for advanced CFD analysis
Introduction to SimWorks
All of the introduction videos and tutorials in the section are also available as YouTube videos. Those will cover the basics of the GUI, how to use it and introduce the user to the basic usage of SimWorks and 2 tutorials (available both as YouTube videos and as online tutorials) to cover a simple external aerodynamics simulation of a Glider and an internal flow simulations of a Pipe. The main goal of this section is to give the user the basic knowledge and confidence to cover the basic apsect of SimWorks.
The SimWorks introduction tutorial shows the basics of the software and describes the different environments within it. It is an essential intro to get you started.
The Glider tutorial shows how to setup a simple external aerodynamics simulation following a step by step approach. Each individual step is fully expanded and explained to give a valid example even to new users who have no used SimWorks before. It introduced the concepts of Outer domain, which is the simulation volume, how to define Boundary conditions and the peculiar SimWorks features of Part groups and Mesh groups to give the user maximum flexibility in defining simulations parameters.
The Pipe tutorial covers how to define an internal flow simulation, in this case the Outer domain is not user. It also introduced the concept of surface normals to allow the user to correctly define the direction of flow entering or exiting from the tube.
The SimWorks advanced introduction tutorial expands the basic tutorial giving a more in depth overview of the software. In particular the very important features of creating new Mesh groups and Duplicate new simulations once they have successfully run to avoid having to redefine all the basics settings.
This advanced introductino expands the capabilities shown by completing the 2 basic CFD simulations of the Glider and the Pipe to have a deeper understanding of the way the GUI works.
Industrial applications
The intermidiate tutorials show basic industrial applications of the software aimed at getting actual numerical values out of the simulation or the aerodynamic effect of certain components.
The wind load on buildings tutorial is a practical example of an industrial application using SimWorks to calculate the structural load due to the wind effect.
The Truck aerodynamics simulation shows how to calculate the aerodynamic drag change of adding sideskirts to a truck. Again this tutorial offers a good example of an industrial application in the automotive field.
SimWorks multiple simulations capabilities
SimWorks supports a multi simulation approach, meaning that once a simulation is defined the user can right click on it and duplicate it to define a new simulation.
The Glider stall and pitch angles tutorial exploits the advanced SimWorks capabilities to carry out multiple simulations at the same time and the Sweep functionality, which once the first simulation is defined allows the user to test the effect of changing a parameter multiple times with the click of a button. In this case an aerodynamic map is derived by changing the pitch angle of the original Glider model run as a base tutorial.
The mesh reuse and simulation extension guide explains how to duplicate a simulation which has already run and reuse the original mesh, this can save considerable time in all the cases where the user simply wants to change a boundary condition which does not require a new mesh.
Please bear in mind that this is not possible when a change in angle is required because the full Outer domain is moved with respect to the geometry requiring a new mesh.
How to test your geometries and analyse the data
It is now time to apply the functionalities covered by the previous tutorials to real life examples, for this reason we have created two guides. One to cover the process of importing a generic CAD file to help you import your own geometry and carry out a similar simulation to the one covered by the previous tutorials. The second guide is to show how to use the free and open-source software Paraview to carry out a deep analysis of the simulation results beound the capabilities of our Postpro integrated in SimWorks.
The CAD import guide helps the user to understand how SimWorks imports generic CAD files. It can be very useful for the user who wants to start simulating his or her own geometries.
The CFD mesh guide covers the main tools within SimWorks useful to define properly the mesh settings of a generic CFD simulation.
The Paraview guide covers how to import SimWorks results in the free and open-source postprocessor Paraview. Indeed while SimWorks includes its own post-processor which is great to compare quickly different cases and has got the capability of highlighting just the flow field changes due to a geometrical variation the user may need much more in depth analysis capabilities.
For this reason not only we decided to keep the SimWorks results open and accessible but also we created this guide to show the user how to import the results in Paraview to be able to generate among others streamlines, isosurfaces with different level of transparency and in general change the way data is presented and analysed.
Advanced functionalities
It is now time to investigate the advanced functionalities offered by SimWorks
The fume extraction tutorial uses the Passive scalar function which allows to track the dispersion of a contaminant and can be used to both assess how a pollutant is dispersed in the flow and how flows mix together.
The emergency room simulation uses advanced modelling features like Thermal modelling and Buoyancy on top of the passive scalar funcionality covered by the previous tutorial.
Meaning that the air injected into the room has a specific temperature and this affects the local air density leading to internal flow velocities due to the different temperatures.
The Porous media tutorial expands the base pipe tutorial completed at the beginning of the course to introduece a Porous media inside the tube. SimWorks allows the user to define multiple shapes and fine tune the porosity of those, this is a very effective way of simulating common devices used in internal flows like filters, heat exchangers and flow straighteners.
The MRF approach is used to simplify the simulation of rotating components by introducing an Additional source term in the equations. This was the rotation is captured without massively increasing the computational requirements to carry out the simulation.
The Rotating mesh analysis is the best and most complete way of simulating rotating components by actually rotaing the mesh. While more formally correct this approach is significantly more expensive than the MRF approach covered by the previous point.
The Delta wing simulation covers how to setup an Unsteady DES simulation in SimWorks, it also shows how it is possible using free and open-source tools to extract a video of the SimWorks results.
If you have any questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to contact us.
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