Undergraduate - UnitMEC4447 - Computers in fluids and energy

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Engineering
Organisational Unit	Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Offered	Clayton First semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Professor Mark Thompson (Clayton); Dr Tan Boon Thong (Malaysia)

Synopsis

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a well-established analysis, design and optimaisation approach for industrial fluid and heat transfer problems.Examples include turomachinery, vehicle aerodynamics and aeronautics. It is also a powerful research tool and is being increasingly used to answer fundamental questions in a wide range of fields, from astrophysics to nanomaterials. This Unit provides an introduction to this mathematically sophisticated discipline. This involves a review of the equations governing motion and energy of fluids, the mathematical properties of these equations and the relevance of such properties to obtaining numerical solutions. The basics of numerical discretization and solution methods will be discussed. The Unit will also introduce you to using commercial CFD packages in analysing complex industrial problems involving fluids.

Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

explain the main approaches used to discretise the compressible and incompressible fluid flow equations.
gain familiarity and understand of the capabilities and limitations of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) packages to model engineering problems in fluid flow and heat transfer
develop a theoretical understanding of the concepts of resolution, stability and order of numerical methods for solving partial differential equations relevant to engineering, and to be able to apply them in practice
gain a good understanding of the approximations necessary when modelling turbulent flows, and an understanding of the appropriate turbulence model for a particular problem
combine this knowledge to use a CFD package to compute an approximate solution to an engineering problem, with appropriate selection of boundary conditions, grid size and turbulence model
use this knowledge to program simple numerical models relevant to heat transfer and fluid flow

Assessment

Examination (3 hours): 50%
Tests: 20%
Assignments: 30%

Students are required to achieve at least 45% in the total continuous assessment component (assignments, tests, mid-semester exams, laboratory reports) and at least 45% in the final examination component and an overall mark of 50% to achieve a pass grade in the unit. Students failing to achieve this requirement will be given a maximum of 45% in the unit.

Workload requirements

5 contact hours per week including lectures, tutorials and computer laboratory classes and 7 hours of private study per week.

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Chris Davies

Prerequisites

MEC3451 and MEC3456 or MAE3401 and MAE2403 or MAE3403