Flat Plate Laminar Boundary Layer

The external fluid flow can be defined as the flow around a body such that the body is completely submerged in it, for example, flow around turbine blades, submarines, and airplanes, etc. Engineers study and analyze these flows to understand and estimate the two main aerodynamic forces exerted by the fluid on the object — the drag and lift forces. Due to the fluid properties (viscosity in particular), external flows show different characteristics near the object’s surface compared to regions away from the object. The formation of a boundary layer, which is a thin narrow viscous region near the object’s surface, is one common element in all external viscous flows. Simulations help us calculate these forces and make the required design changes to obtain higher lift and minimize drag. In this course, we consider a canonical problem of steady flow over a flat plate to understand the aerodynamic effects on a flat surface.

This SimCafe course was developed by Dr. Rajesh Bhaskaran, Swanson Director of Engineering Simulation at Cornell University, and Javier Gutierrez Gallardo in partnership with Ansys. It serves as an e-learning resource to integrate industry-standard simulation tools into courses and provides a resource for supplementary learning outside the classroom. In this course, we will learn to model the laminar flow over a flat plate by following the end-to-end workflow in Ansys Workbench.

For more ways to learn, check out the Cornell edX course, A Hands-on Introduction to Engineering Simulations at ansys.com/cornell.

Cornell University also offers a Fluid Dynamics Simulations Using Ansys online certificate authored by Dr. Rajesh Bhaskaran. Learn more here: https://ecornell.cornell.edu/fluiddynamics

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