A numerical investigation of asymmetric diffuser which equipped with vortex generator is presented. The investigation is aimed to know fluid flow characteristic in asymmetric diffuser which equipped with vortex generator on the up side of its diverging wall and to determine the effectiveness of using vortex generator on diffuser performance. Numerical investigation method was done by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method with Fluent 6.3.26 software and with software of GAMBIT 2.4.6 to designed geometry and discriminated (meshing) it. The procedures performed on numerical investigation were pre-processing, solving, and postprocessing stages. The results show that the flow of fluid simulated shear stress transport (SST) k-ω did not suffer a deflection toward the straight wall shortly at the time when entering the diffuser. Standard k-ε predicted the flow was deflected when entering the diffuser. Addition of vortex generator was not able to reduce the amount of adverse pressure gradient effect that occurred within the diffuser so using vortex generator was not effective to improve diffuser performance.
Keywords-asymmetric diffuser; vortex generator; numerical; CFD.
Abstrak-Studi numerik karakteristik aliran fluida di dalamAsymmetric diffuser dengan penambahan vortex generator dilakukan untuk mengetahui fenomena aliran fluida di dalam asymmetric diffuser yang dilengkapi dengan vortex generator pada sisi atas diverging wall, dan untuk menentukan efektivitas penggunaan vortex generator terhadap performa diffuser. Metode penelitian numerik dilakukan dengan menggunakan metode Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) dengan software Fluent 6.3.26 dan dengan software GAMBIT 2.4.6 untuk membuat model geometri awal dan melakukan diskritisasi (meshing) pada model tersebut. Prosedur yang dilakukan pada penelitian numerik adalah tahap pre-processing, tahap solving, dan tahap post-processing. Hasil yang didapat yaitu aliran fluida hasil simulasi shear stress transport (SST) k-ω tidak mengalami defleksi ke arah straight wall sesaat ketika memasuki diffuser. Sedangkan pada standard k-ε, aliran mengalami defleksi ketika memasuki diffuser. Kata Kunci-asymmetric; vortex generator; numerik; CFD.