Paper: CFD model for the investigation of flow environments experienced by fish
RIBES Early Stage Researcher Ali Hassan Khan and colleagues has recently published a paper "An open 3D CFD model for the investigation of flow environments experienced by freshwater fish". Ali Hassan Khan, hosted by Tallinn University of Technology, is the lead author of the paper that also, among others, includes his RIBES supervisors Jeffrey Tuhtan and Maarja Kruusmaa in the authorlist. Ali describes his papers:
"Freshwater ecosystems are in rapid decline and are notoriously difficult to investigate due to the broad spectrum of physical flow conditions. Modelling fish and flow interactions is especially challenging due to turbulence and the presence of the boundary layer, which is 6 mm thick region near the body used by fish to sense their environment. This research work provides a benchmark study of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to a trout-shaped body. The streamwise and lateral velocities around the fish body are calibrated and validated at a 1:1 scale using laser doppler anemometer (LDA) measurements in a flow tunnel. Three different Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) models were compared to determine the optimal numerical model setup. We found that the Spalart Allamaras model provided the most consistently accurate velocity estimates, and that CFD models of fish-shaped bodies need to resolve the boundary layer. The significant contribution of this work is an open, standardized workflow and numerical setup for fish-shaped bodies in turbulent flows. This benchmark study is an important first step which can be used in future studies to ensure consistent and reproducible CFD for the study of fish and flow interactions. "
