In this blog post, we look at how to add and define a new fluid temperature dependent operating material for a flow network in Flownex.
Flownex Interface for Material Management
When working with temperature-dependent fluid materials in Flownex, it's important to understand their properties as functions of temperature. This understanding ensures accurate prediction of fluid behavior under various thermal conditions, leading to precise simulation results.
Flownex provides a user-friendly interface that allows for easy management of fluid materials. To navigate this interface, start by accessing the 'Materials and Fluids' section from the Material Database, where you can view, edit, and manage existing materials. Here, a library of predefined materials, including mixed fluids, pure fluids, solids, and two phase fluids, is available, but the real power comes from the ability to create custom materials tailored to specific simulation needs.
Creating a New Temperature-dependent Fluid
When using Flownex, you can input temperature-dependent properties for a material in the material properties dialogue box. You have options such as constant magnitude, table, equation, and script to define how material properties change with temperature. Understanding this interface is important for configuring your new fluid material. To create a new temperature-dependent fluid material in Flownex, right-click on 'Materials and Fluid' and select 'Add New Material'. Then, input the necessary data, such as density, viscosity, thermal conductivity, and Cp/enthalpy, taking into account their variation with temperature. For each property, input the temperature range and corresponding values. Save your new material and ensure that all entries are correct. Properly entering this data is critical for the accurate simulation of fluid behavior under varying thermal conditions.
In this video, the step-by-step procedure demonstrates how to add a new custom fluid operating material and define its thermal conductivity as a linear function of temperature: C(T) = 2.064 - 0.06T, for a flow network in Flownex.
This video can be found on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1DRWjc9_Ro