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Enhancing Water Management with CFD: A Comprehensive Overview

Written by German Ibarra | Oct 9, 2024 7:21:48 PM

Explore the significant contribution of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) in enhancing civil and hydraulic engineering practices that safeguard human health.

Challenges

Water management refers to the practice of planning, developing, distributing, and managing the optimum use of water resources. It encompasses a broad range of activities designed to ensure that water is used efficiently and sustainably to meet various needs, including agriculture, industry, human consumption, energy production, and environmental conservation. Some key components of Water Management include:

  • Water Supply and Distribution
    Ensuring water supply for residential, agricultural, and industrial use.

  • Wastewater Management
    Treating and disposing of wastewater to reduce pollution and protect health.

  • Flood Control and Stormwater Management
    Managing stormwater runoff and reduce the risk of floods. 

  • Irrigation and Agricultural Water Use
    Managing water resources for farming, ensuring efficient irrigation methods.

  • Groundwater Management
    Monitoring and regulating the extraction of groundwater.

  • Water Quality Management
    Ensuring that water sources remain clean and free from pollutants through proper treatment.

Rising water demand from urbanization and agriculture requires urgent action on climate change, population growth, pollution, and outdated infrastructure. Industrial contamination and inefficient systems are straining water delivery and treatment, making sustainable management critical for the future.

 

Engineering Solutions

Engineers play a vital role in safeguarding the operational and structural integrity of water management systems, particularly during extreme events. Beyond maintaining stability, these systems must also comply with modern standards and effectively handle complex, unsteady flow conditions. As challenges increase, the need for innovative solutions becomes critical, with CFD serving as a valuable tool for decision-making in areas such as:

  • Flow Prediction 
    Managing fluctuating flow rates and preventing flooding.

  • Hydraulic Efficiency 
    Minimizing energy losses and turbulence.

  • Erosion & Sedimentation
    Controlling erosion and sediment buildup.

  • Environmental Impact
    Reducing downstream ecological disruption.

  • Structural Integrity
    Protecting structures under extreme conditions.

  • Retrofit & Modernization
    Upgrading older designs for modern demands.

  • Unsteady Flow
    Handling unsteady and transient flows effectively with CFD simulations.

 

Methods

CFD enables high-fidelity simulations with streamlined workflows. Different capabilities are employed such as RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes) equations solve both flow/pressure patterns and turbulence, mass and heat transfer modeling, species transport for pollutants, Discrete Phase Modeling (DPM) for particle tracking, Volume of Fluid (VOF) applied for free surface flows, and multiphase flows for more complex interactions.

Sometimes the analysis involves different runs, so parametric studies and optimization techniques are applied for obtaining better understanding. Parallel processing, via HPC and GPU acceleration, boosts simulation speed for complex scenarios like flood control and pollutant dispersion. Reduced-order models (ROMs) further streamline large-scale simulations, helping optimize water infrastructure and decision-making.

 

Results

CFD has proven to be a valuable tool in various water management applications, helping analyze and optimize complex systems. The results extend beyond fluid behavior simulations, as the applications are highly diverse. The following are specific examples where CFD has been effectively applied in water management, demonstrating its practical benefits.

 

PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) Plastic Bottle Cleaning

  • Remove dirt and miscellaneous bacteria by jet water from injection.
  • Find injection condition that water hits the entire surface of bottle and save amount of water.
  • CFD allows predicting droplet and film flow. That can find the optimal injection conditions for cleaning before choosing an injector.
  • It is also possible to consider conditions that save amount of water as much as possible.

 

Stormwater Sediment Removal

  • This system achieved 90% of storm sediment without moving parts and filtratin systems. 
  • The use of CFD saved $50,000 in design costs, obtaining the prototype in less time and trials; that is, less than 1 week using Ansys CFD vs $20,000 + 8 weeks per prototype building.
  • Notice that Stormwater runoff contributes to 13% of polluted rivers, 20% of polluted lakes and 45% of polluted estuaries.

 

Produced Water Unit Operation

  • Produced Water is extracted along with oil and gas during drilling operations: it can contain oil, chemicals, salts, and other contaminants.
  • Designers allow for a 20% factor of safety in tank surface area to allow for the shortcomings of general design theory.
  • Optimization achieved of final effluent quality for increased load in the system.
  • Figure shows the concentration profiles of the clarifier approaching 8,000 mg/l solids in the blanket.

 

Spillway and Culvert Flow Rating Improvements

  • Different hydraulic structures in South Florida are assessed using CFD data for decision-making (see HHB Report #2015-001).
  • Case Study: The replacement design of the S49 spillway. Different structures are simulated under several operating conditions to assess the risk of implementation even during the construction process.
  • Accurate flow data obtained for mandatory permit compliance, hydrological modeling, evaluation of restoration performance measures, and water supply planning.

 

Ansys Solution Benefits

CFD modeling demonstrates its potential to optimize and evaluate hydraulic structures through Ansys's advanced solutions. For preprocessing, Ansys SpaceClaim and Discovery Modeling facilitate CAD creation and preparation, while Ansys Fluent and CFX tackle various simulation challenges. High-fidelity postprocessing tools, like Ansys Ensight, effectively analyze and visualize large datasets.

Additionally, CFD results can be integrated with structural analyses in Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) scenarios, supported by Ansys Mechanical and LS-Dyna. Techniques such as Design of Experiments (DOE) and advanced optimization are facilitated by DesignXplorer and Ansys OptiSlang within the Workbench platform. Ansys also provides HPC licenses and GPU capabilities for parallel processing of complex models, ensuring thorough evaluations.

 

Ozen Engineering Expertise

Ozen Engineering Inc. leverages its extensive consulting expertise in CFD, FEA, optics, photonics, and electromagnetic simulations to achieve exceptional results across various engineering projects, addressing complex challenges like multiphase flows, erosion modeling, and channel flows using Ansys software.

We offer support, mentoring, and consulting services to enhance the performance and reliability of your hydraulic systems. Trust our proven track record to accelerate projects, optimize performance, and deliver high-quality, cost-effective results for both new and existing water control systems. For more information, please visit https://ozeninc.com.

 

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