About Us

www.cfd.at is maintained by the Research divison Thermal Process Engineering - Computational Fluid Dynamics at the Institute of Chemical, Environmental & Bioscience Engineering, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

The fast development of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods and the availability of reliable CFD codes have opened a wide field for scientific and applied research projects to assist the design of apparatuses, devices or modules with their special fluid dynamic requirements.

Process engineers still make use of empiric equations based on dimensionless numbers to design the apparatus. However, complex reactors or separation devices cannot be described by such models only. Reliable answers to questions such as How does a geometry change affect the process performance?, What is the effect of different process conditions? or How is the partial load behavior? are needed but may be expensive especially if they have to be derived from experiments.

Numerical flow simulation has become an effective alternative. By three dimensional discretization of the Navier-Stokes equation, the continuity equation, the energy equation and additional terms (species balances, reactions, external forces, multiphase flow interactions) it is possible to obtain local information about the flow field.

The research group has started early to make use of CFD as an important tool in chemical engineering. Experimental CFD codes as well as various submodels to commercial CFD solvers have been developed recently and have been successfully applied in various projects.