Numerical Study of Important Factors for a Vortex Shedder using Automated Design Cycle

Abstract

The good performance of a vortex shedder is defined by strong and stable vortex generated under the condition of most linearity in Strouhal number and low power loss. In this paper, the flow past a bluff body of circular cylinder with a slit normal to the flow has been analyzed focusing on drag coefficient, linearity of Strouhal number and flow resistance (K-factor). The ANSYS/FLUENT package is used for flow simulation and the integration method of computational code to iSIGHT platform is employed for automated design cycle. This study results the design with (0.20~0.267) blockage ratio and 0.10 slit ratio as the best shedder for vortex flowmeter and this results are in well agreement with the experiment. As the combination of GAMBIT, FLUENT, and iSIGHT substitutes the design parameters automatically according to the input data, this method designs effectively the vortex shedder with less design cycle time and low manufacturing cost eliminating the human intervention bottleneck.