Dennis Román | Project Portfolio

CFD Lab

CFD Lab: Convergent-Divergent Nozzle Flow

AE 4699 nozzle-flow assignment using ANSYS Fluent to capture choking behavior and supersonic acceleration in a convergent-divergent geometry.

ANSYS FluentCompressible FlowPost-Processing
Nozzle Mach contour (clean render)

Added figure: Mach-number contour through convergent-divergent nozzle.

Snapshot

  • Course/Lab: AE 4699 CFD Lab
  • Case type: Compressible internal flow (convergent-divergent nozzle)
  • Solver: ANSYS Fluent
  • Primary focus: Choking behavior, Mach trend, and pressure trend consistency

Mission and setup

  • Build a clean compressible-flow case with explicit pressure inlet/outlet conditions.
  • Confirm expected nozzle physics:
    • Flow accelerates through the throat
    • Throat reaches choking condition
    • Diverging section trends to supersonic exit
  • Use contour interpretation to verify physical consistency before reporting.

What I executed

  • Defined stagnation-pressure inlet and static-pressure outlet target case.
  • Solved and post-processed Mach and static-pressure contours.
  • Reviewed field behavior against isentropic nozzle expectations.
  • Structured results in a lab-report format for fast review.

Results and engineering takeaways

  • Choked behavior observed at the throat with monotonic acceleration downstream.
  • Mach contour indicates smooth supersonic development toward the exit.
  • Static-pressure field drops from inlet to throat and continues downstream as expected.
  • Case reinforces the value of trend-level verification before deeper design claims.

Validation and verification notes

  • Compared contour trends to expected 1D compressible-flow behavior.
  • Checked for non-physical shocks/artifacts in the baseline outlet-pressure case.
  • Confirmed pressure and Mach trends remain internally consistent across field views.

Reproducibility notes

  • Reusable slide/report structure keeps setup and interpretation standardized.
  • Boundary-condition values documented with explicit units and reference conventions.
  • Output visuals captured in a fixed sequence for side-by-side rerun comparison.

Validation

  • Mach contour trend confirms accelerating flow through throat

    pass

  • Static pressure decreases consistently downstream

    pass

Reproducibility

  • Structured case specification

    Boundary conditions and expected outcomes documented before solving.

  • Consistent field extraction

    Mach and static-pressure contours reported for direct comparison.

  • Slide-based reporting template

    Same section order used for setup, solution, and interpretation.