Dennis Román | Project Portfolio

CFD Lab

CFD Lab: Forced Convection Over a Flat Plate

AE 4699 forced-convection assignment comparing laminar and turbulent flat-plate behavior with mesh/convergence checks in ANSYS Fluent.

ANSYS FluentHeat Transfer CFDBoundary Layer Analysis
Turbulent kinetic energy contour over flat plate

Added figure: turbulent kinetic energy contour over the flat plate.

Snapshot

  • Course/Lab: AE 4699 CFD Lab
  • Case type: External forced-convection over flat plate
  • Solver: ANSYS Fluent
  • Primary focus: Mesh/convergence discipline and laminar-vs-turbulent trend comparison

Mission and setup

  • Build baseline laminar and turbulent flat-plate CFD cases.
  • Evaluate expected behavior in:
    • Skin-friction trend along the plate
    • Thermal boundary-layer development
    • Residual convergence quality
  • Use trend-based interpretation to connect numerics to physics.

What I executed

  • Created case setup with matched geometry and comparable boundary conditions.
  • Solved both laminar and turbulent configurations.
  • Generated residual plots for convergence tracking.
  • Interpreted Cf and thermal-profile behavior against expected flat-plate theory.

Results and engineering takeaways

  • Residual histories provide clear convergence evidence for compared cases.
  • Turbulent case shows expected stronger wall-shear and thermal transport behavior.
  • Laminar case captures lower-gradient behavior with thinner near-wall transport effects.
  • Assignment strengthened case-quality checks before final aerodynamic/thermal claims.

Validation and verification notes

  • Compared simulation trends to expected analytical/correlation behavior.
  • Used mesh and convergence interpretation as first-pass validation gates.
  • Kept laminar/turbulent comparison structure consistent across outputs.

Reproducibility notes

  • Setup-to-results workflow documented in a fixed assignment template.
  • Case naming and slide ordering support quick reruns and side-by-side checks.
  • Convergence and physics outputs reported together for traceable review.

Validation

  • Laminar Cf trend compared to analytical expectation

    pass

  • Turbulent trend and thermal-layer interpretation

    pass

Reproducibility

  • Case-family organization

    Laminar and turbulent runs documented with matched reporting fields.

  • Residual + metric pairing

    Convergence plots presented alongside physics metrics.

  • Expected-outcome checklist

    Validation expectations written before final interpretation.