Modern Software for the Numerical Study of Flow in Hydraulic Machines

Abstract

In the past few decades, the field of developing computer software systems has been actively developing, which in turn leads to competition in the software market. Qualified engineers working in the hydroturbine industry must be able to use a computer not only at the user level, but also at the programmer level in order to program modules for their own needs based on existing software systems. Recently, numerical simulation has become applicable to an ever wider class of flows, replacing experimental research methods. Certain numerical models are characterized by different areas of applicability and expenditures of computational resources. The paper provides an analytical review of modern CFD software systems. The advantages and disadvantages of these programs are analyzed in terms of building a three-dimensional model of the object of study, creating a computational grid, setting boundary conditions and visualizing the calculation results. The analysis and comparison of existing mathematical models that used to calculate the spatial flow in the flow path of hydraulic machines has been carried out. There are many different programs for solving hydrodynamic problems, some of the advanced commercial software systems are Ansys, SolidWorks Flow Simulation, Autodesk CFD. There are also open source software products. These automatic design systems make it possible not only to perform high-quality modeling of systems of various physical nature, but also to study the response of these systems to external influences in the form of distributions of pressures, temperatures, and velocities. The calculation algorithms in the programs are similar; the distinctive features of the programs can be evaluated according to the following criteria: grid generation, accuracy, reliability (convergence), calculation speed, model physics, system flexibility. The use of modern software packages for studying the hydrodynamic characteristics of the flow in hydraulic machines significantly reduces the time and material resources in comparison with physical modeling.