Association of design and computational fluid dynamics simulation intent in flow control product optimization

Abstract

Computational fluid dynamics has been extensively used for fluid flow simulation and thus guiding the flow control device design. However, computational fluid dynamics simulation requires explicit geometry input and complicated solver setup, which is a barrier in case of the cyclic computer-aided design/computational fluid dynamics integrated design process. Tedious human interventions are inevitable to make up the gap. To fix this issue, this work proposed a theoretical framework where the computational fluid dynamics solver setup can be intelligently assisted by the simulation intent capture. Two feature concepts, the fluid physics feature and the dynamic physics feature, have been defined to support the simulation intent capture. A prototype has been developed for the computer-aided design/computational fluid dynamics integrated design implementation without the need of human intervention, where the design intent and computational fluid dynamics simulation intent are associated seamlessly. An outflow control device used in the steam-assisted gravity drainage process is studied using this prototype, and the target performance of the device is effectively optimized.