Practical techniques for a three-dimensional FEM analysis of incompressible fluid flow contained with slip walls and a downstream tube bundle

Two practical techniques are proposed in this paper to simulate a flow contained in a plenum with a downstream tube bundle under a PC environment. First, a technique to impose slip wall conditions on smooth-faced planes and sharp edges is proposed to compensate for the mesh coarseness relative to boundary layer thickness. In particular, a new type of Poisson equation is formulated to simultaneously satisfy both such velocity boundary conditions on walls and the incompressibility constraint. Second, a numerical model for a downstream tube bundle is proposed, where hydraulic resistance in a tube is imposed as a traction boundary condition on a fluid surface contacting the tube bundle end. The effectiveness of the techniques is numerically demonstrated in the application to a flow in a condenser water box. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.