A cfd simulation of water flow through a variable area venturi meter

This work Investigates using the Ansys fluent CFD tool, the pressure difference exerted on a bluff body object and discusses the flow field from inlet to outlet. The objectives of this work are to discuss the flow field from inlet to outlet, to investigate the pressure difference exerted 25mm upstream and 25mm downstream of the bluff body object for different volumetric flow rates (4 l/s, 5 l/s and 8 l/s).The total pressure losses across the plate for the 4 l/s, 5 l/s and 8 l/s flows are 17.38 kPa, 27.14 kPa and 69.62 kPa respectively. These losses are partly due to the level of turbulence with the 8 l/s flow having the maximum turbulence intensity of over 250% exceeding those of the 4l/s and 5l/s flows which are ~130% and ~160% respectively. When compared with the mean operating pressure (101.325 kPa), these pressure losses represents 17.1%, 26.8% and 68.7% change for 4l/s 5 l/s and 8 l/s flows respectively.