Reply To: Lower total surface heat flux with a finer mesh

[Vivek Praveen]

Hi Nickolas,

It’s important to perform a proper mesh independence study. You need to verify that the results (heat flux, temperature distribution, etc.) are not still changing significantly as you refine the mesh. A drastic drop in heat flux suggests that you may not have reached mesh independence. Refine the mesh in smaller increments to see how the heat flux changes. You should observe a point where the changes in heat flux stabilize, which indicates mesh independence.

Another thing that you should be careful of is mesh quality. Check the skewness and orthogonality of your refined mesh. Ensure that the mesh quality remains high as you refine. You can use Fluent’s mesh quality check tools for this. Also, other thing is that if the solution isn't fully converged, you may see incorrect results. Check for convergence before arriving at any conclusion.