Flocculation Tank with Three Baffles Turning
The The simplification of a single baffle turn eliminates important behavior within the flocculator. Multiple baffles enable separation regions to interact with each other. The velocity magnitude plot below in Figure 1 displays how the flow before separation at the second turn is not uniform and moves fastest at the edge of the baffle. The faster moving fluid can't turn fast enough and impinges on the edge of the third baffle. The contours of turbulence disspation dissipation rate illustrate are illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 1: Velocity Magnitude for three turns case case
Figure 2: Turbulence Dissipate Rate for three turn turns
Flocculation Tank with Five Baffles Turning
The five baffle turning case results below shown in Figure 3 reveals a similar velocity profile after each turn. In this case, there is not a high velocity region followed by a high dissipation region, and the flow seems more uniform.
The flow obviously relates to the geometry of the problem. Altering the geometry of the problem will result in different flows with a different distribution of energy dissipation.
Automation of Mesh Creation Process
...
Using the script, the user just have to change the parameter of baffle spacings, clearance height and flocculation tank height. Upon changing those parameter, the user can execute Gambit and run the journal files for mesh generation.
Similarly, a script in FLUENT can process a completed mesh, and automatically set up the solver, initial conditions, fluid properties, convergence criteria, and save the convergence solution data file to be analyzed later. The incomplete script can be accessed here.