Simulation of Turbulent Flow in Pipes Using the Navier-Stokes Solver with Finite Volume Method

Abstract

Whether engineers are pushing fire hoses, jet fuel, or cold air through tubes, understanding how rough water actually moves inside pipes helps them design better cities, drill sites, and office towers. The team uses the Finite Volume Method, which boxes up fluid slices to maintain honest mass and force balances, to calculate the Navier-Stokes rules on a computer grid in order to track that whirling motion. Additionally, they use the k-epsilon turbulence model, which has been proven to work well for wild-flow plumbing, to add intelligence on the occurrence of random eddies when flow speed becomes unmanageable. A long circular tube that is fed with high-speed water is already bustling inside their virtual lab, much like it would hundreds of meters downstream. The borders of the tube are braced with pressures, temperatures, and speeds that correspond to rusty steel or plastic pipes in the field. Using the Simple method, a semi-implicit tool that tames the math lines and prevents unanticipated oscillations in the output, the code connects pressure and velocity without allowing either to dodge it. In order for everyone to see whether the model is effective, the team lastly determines whether adjusting grid density has any effect at all before stacking the computer results next to lab data and traditional computations. The findings vividly illustrate the fluid's movement within the pipe; they include information on the fluid's speed at various locations, pressure dips along its length, and the areas with the highest turbulence. Researchers are sure that the setup and calculations are sound because these statistics closely match recognized reference data. Overall, the modelling program operates fast and consistently for steady, rough pipe flow, and experts anticipate that it will be able to manage time-varying flow and twisted or shrinking ducts in subsequent experiments. For businesses that transport liquids or gases on a daily basis, these insights can assist engineers in improving pipe networks, reducing energy waste, and saving expenses.