Learning Forum

[konstantinospolychronakis10]

Hi everyone, I am trying to model the flow over a floating solar pv. I am using the volume of fluid method to model both water and air. In the middle of my fluid domain i have the solid body. I am using the open channel flow. I would like to ask the following:

1) In the manual it says that we can only use pressure inlet or mass flow inlet for the open channel method. Is it a problem to use velocity inlet so i can model different inlet velocities for water and air?

2) For the heat that is created from the absorbed solar radiation that is not transformed to electricity i am using a source term with a udf file. I also use coupled wall interfaces for the surfaces of the pv.  The problem is that when the simulation converges the surface of the solar panel has the same temperature with water. But the source term is computed correctly. To model the temperature difference i am using expressions in my model with IF functions so when the Volume fraction of water is nearly 1 i have a certain value of temperature and if not i have another value that represents the temperature of air. I am using the segregated velocity inputs. Does anyone has any idea ?

 

[Rob]

Velocity is fine, https://ansyshelp.ansys.com/account/Secured?returnurl=/Views/Secured/corp/v242/en/flu_ug/flu_ug_sec_mphase_using_steps_vof.html%23sec-mp-vof-open_channel_velocity_inlet

Have you given the "thin" wall a material that's not Aluminium and did you add a thickness?

[konstantinospolychronakis10]

Yes i used PET for the pv

[Rob]

And the thickness? 

[konstantinospolychronakis10]

The thickness of the wall is 4.6 mm

[Rob]

And you're monitoring the cell temperature or wall temperature?

[konstantinospolychronakis10]

I am monitoring the cell temperature. I think i found the mistake. It has to be with the meshing. In z=0 i didnt have a node so it was assumed that the phase was water.