APLICAÇÕES DE SIMULAÇÃO CFD EM TUBOS DE VENTURI UTILIZANDO O SOFTWARE OPENFOAM NA FORMAÇÃO DE FÍSICOS E ENGENHEIROS

Abstract

Experimental activities contribute to the undergraduate's academic training by demonstrating the relationships between theoretical concepts and practical application. In view of this, teaching resources for laboratories are relevant, especially in the subject of fluid mechanics where phenomena are highly visual, one of the options being virtual simulation and modeling environments. This study aims to simulate an internal flow of an incompressible fluid inside a pipe of variable diameters, through Computational Fluid Dynamics, using the open source software OpenFOAM, evaluating the results of kinematic pressure and velocity using the Bernoulli equation. Computational fluid dynamics modeling was carried out, consisting of three stages: pre-processing, where the external software Gmsh was used to create the geometric model and computational mesh; processing, where OpenFOAM was used to define the boundary conditions and calculate the flow variables, with the fluid governing equations being discretized using the Finite Volume Method; and post-processing, where the Paraview software was used to visualize the results. The results for the kinematic pressure and velocity at the points of the streamline at the center of the pipe and applied to the Bernoulli equation show that the equation is an approximate relationship with limitations and cannot be applied to all regions of the flow, for example, in regions close to solid surfaces or in narrow ducts, it is necessary to evaluate the results obtained considering the pressure loss phenomena present in internal flows.