The flow through a plenum-runner system: a comparison of experiment and computation

This paper describes the comparison between experimental and computational results for the flow in an inlet system that contains a plenum. Here, the main focus is on the details of the computations and the comparison with experimental results for flow in the plenum. Details of the experiment are described elsewhere. By varying mesh density, boundary conditions, discretization schemes and turbulence models, a wide-ranging study of the accuracy of computational techniques for an industrial problem has been made. In particular, levels of mesh refinement for converged numerical solutions have been determined, together with performance levels for the various settings used. In terms of velocity prediction, when the flow is driven by boundary conditions specified at the outlet more accurate results are achieved. This is due to the flow at the inlet being calculated more accurately in these cases. The effects of different discretization schemes and turbulence models on the velocity predictions are small. Pressure predictions are, however, improved by more complex turbulence models such as the renormalization group (RNG) model.