Reply To: Importing solution field from STAR-CCM+

[grayg34]

Well I appreciate any assistance on the manner. Worst case if I have to resolve the primary flow in Fluent I can now use the imported fields as initial conditions which will save some computing time at least. 

I performed a test to confirm my thinking. With the velocity field and turbulence field fixed I changed the material properties: 

• When I varied densitry the outlet flow rate changed. This was obviously to be expected. The sum of the built-in mass imbalance field was proportional to change in density which is also not surprising as the magnitude of mass fluxes changes.
• When I changed the viscosity there was no effect on the mass imbalance or outlet flow rate. This is consistent with my understanding of solving the pressure equation to calculate mass flux at faces.

I have double checked that I have the same density specified in both simulations. My simplified test case has a velocity inlet and a pressure outlet, the global mass conservation should not depend on density. 

The exmples of using fixed values in the fluent user manual suggest you can assign experimentally obtained velocity fields to a region of your simulation. How does Fluent calculate conservative mass fluxes in that instance? The experimentally measured velocities are likely not going to line up with cell centers. The main difference I see between my situation and the given examples is I am fixing the entire field opposed to a small region.