Simulation of Flow Past a Sphere using the Fluent Code

We use the commercial computational fluid dynamics code Fluent to simulate the flow around a sphere in several different flow regimes steady-state laminar flow at a Reynolds number Re of 100, time-dependent laminar flow at Re 300, and turbulent flow at Re 10,000 and Re 1,000,000. These simulations provide a test of the ability of the code to accurately reproduce typical flow structures observed in generic bluff body flows, such as those experienced by submarines and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles UUVs. The simulations are compared both with experimental results and computations from other computer codes and it is found that Fluent is able to accurately simulate the fluid behaviour in each of the above flow regimes.