Improvement on pressure distribution for venturi tube flow

Abstract

A goal driven optimization process has been undertaken for a venturi tube. Venturi tube create a constriction within a pipe that builds backpressure upstream and effects a negative pressure downstream of the constriction. The passage of a fluid through a constriction, causing a pressure drop and increase in velocity is termed the venturi effect. During operation as the fluid continuing flow in at certain pressure, the flow inside the venturi changes thus give the impact on the venturi wall. The pressure on the wall are then was studied and the geometry are improved. In this paper, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method was used to simulate the pressure distribution along the venturi wall and the relationship among the structure parameters (venturi inlet, venturi outlet and venturi throat) using different pressure inlet of 0.21MPa, 0.41MPa, 0.61MPa, 0.81MPa and 1.01MPa. This CFD model also has been used in ANSYS Workbench ‘Design Exploration’ software to establish an optimised design using Box-Behnken Design (BBD) for Design of Experiment (DoE), 2nd Order Standard Response for Response Surface and Screening for Optimization considering 3 geometrical parameters and their effect on two Objective Function, to reduce the pressure and velocity in the venturi. The results show that the pressure distribution curve along the wall for the improved geometry of venturi tube is better than current geometry and the tendency to vibrate cause of pressure is minimise. The optimization process using Screening shown that the suggested candidate point based on the design point to determine the design optimization can be used to develop a new geometry of venturi tube.