Optional Lecture 1:

Eulerian Wall Film Modeling

16.0 Release

Multiphase Modeling using

ANSYS Fluent
1 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential
 Outline
• Introduction
• Theory
• Usage
• Validations
• Best Practices
• Appendix

2 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Why Eulerian Wall Film Model?
• There are several engineering applications that involve thin liquid film. In ANSYS Fluent,
Eulerian Wall Film Model (EWFM) is developed to cater to this need

• There are several different physical phenomena associated with a liquid film that must be
modeled. They are listed on the next slide.

3 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Engineering Applications
Running Wet and Run Back Analysis Film Condensation and Evaporation
3D Wing with Slats & Flap Aircraft In-cabin Condensation
Film Stripping &
Particle Release

• Design of anti-icing system

• Prediction of the trajectory
Wall Film in Combustor Aircraft Icing
Ice accretion on:
Gas Turbine Combustor
Fuselage, Propeller, Turbofan

• Ice Shape Prediction

• Coalescence of impinging droplets to form running water film
Complex physics: • Freezing of the droplets/film enhanced surface roughness
1) Impinging Spray • Predict Extent of the Aerodynamic Performance Loss
2) Heat transfer with wall and gas & Fuel evaporation • Trajectory of breaking-off/flying ice chunks
3) Re-atomization due to film break-up •Pose risk to suction by the engine intake
4 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential
 Engineering applications – cont.
Automotive applications
• Defogging/demisting of the windshields
• Oil filtration, separators
• Water film on rear view mirror
• Piston cooling
• Coating processes

Oil & gas industry

• Annular flow of liquid in pipes

5 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Physics
Physics
1 Liquid Droplet Collection
2 Film Transport
3 Particle Splashing
4 Particle Stripping
5 Particle Separation
6 Film Heat Transfer with gas and wall

7 Viscous & Kinetic Heating

8 Evaporation & Condensation
9 Melting & Solidification
10 Sublimation & Deposition
Collection Efficiency Calculation = Impingement Mass Flux/(LWC * Free stream Velocity)

6 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 R16 Status
Physics Can be Modeled using EWF
model?
Liquid Droplet Collection 
Film Running on the Surface (Shear, Gravity & 
Viscous Forces)
Particle Splashing 
Particle Stripping 
Particle Separation 
Film Heat Transfer with gas and wall 

Viscous & Kinetic Heating 

Evaporation & Condensation 
Melting & Solidification Possible through UDF
Sublimation Possible through UDF
7 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential
 Eulerian Wall Film Model – Broad Overview
Overview
• Solves for film mass, momentum, heat transfer
• Particle/Phase collection, film formation, transportation, Splashing ,Separation, Stripping
• Eulerian wall film can be coupled with Eulerian-Lagrangian (DPM) and Eulerian - Eulerian
multiphase frame work
Assumptions
• EWF model assumes that film always flows parallel to the surface so normal component of film
velocity is zero.
• component of film velocity is zero.
• The film is assumed to have a parabolic velocity profile & a bilinear temperature profile across
its depth.

Limitations:
• Available only with 3D solver

8 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Mass conservation
Conservation of mass for a two dimensional film in a three dimensional domain is

𝝏𝒉 𝒎𝒔
+ 𝛁𝒔 ∙ 𝒉𝑽𝒍 =
𝝏𝒕 𝝆𝒍
Where,
ρl = liquid density
h= film height
s = the surface gradient operator
𝑽𝒍 = the mean film velocity
𝒎𝒔 = mass source due to droplet collection, film separation, stripping, splashing
and phase change

9 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Momentum conservation
Conservation of film momentum is given by

𝝏𝒉𝑽𝒍 𝒉𝛁𝒔 𝑷𝑳 𝟑
+ 𝛁𝒔 ∙ 𝒉𝑽𝒍 𝑽𝒍 = − + 𝒈𝝉 𝒉 + 𝝉
𝝏𝒕 𝝆𝒍 𝟐𝝆𝒍 𝒇𝒔
Where,
𝑃𝐿 = 𝑃𝑔𝑎𝑠 + 𝑃ℎ + 𝑃𝜎
𝑃ℎ = −𝜌ℎ 𝑛 ∙ 𝑔
𝑃𝜎 = 𝜎𝛻𝑠 ∙ 𝛻𝑠 ℎ
• The terms on the left hand side of this equation represent transient and convection effects, respectively.
• On the right hand side, the first term includes the effects of gas-flow pressure, the gravity component
normal to the wall surface (known as spreading), and surface tension.
• The second term represents the effect of gravity in the direction parallel to the film
• The third term is the viscous shear force at the gas-film interface; the fourth term represents the viscous
force in the film, and
• the last term is associated with droplet collection or separation. Note that in arriving at the shear and
viscous terms on the RHS, a parabolic film velocity profile has been assumed.

10 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Energy conservation
Conservation of film momentum is given by

𝝏𝒉𝑻𝒇 𝟏 𝑻𝒔 − 𝑻𝒇 𝑻𝒇 − 𝑻𝒘
+ 𝛁𝒔 ∙ 𝑽𝒍 𝒉𝑻𝒇 = 𝒌 − + 𝒒𝒊𝒎𝒑 + 𝒎𝒗𝒂𝒑 𝑳 𝑻𝒔
𝝏𝒕 𝝆𝑪𝑷 𝒇 𝒉 𝟐 𝒉 𝟐
𝟏 𝑻𝒔 + 𝑻𝒘 𝟐𝑻𝒇
= 𝟐𝒌𝒇 − + 𝒒𝒊𝒎𝒑 + 𝒎𝒗𝒂𝒑 𝑳 𝑻𝒔
𝝆𝑪𝑷 𝒉 𝒉
In the above equation,
• Ts is the temperature at the film-gas interface;
• Tf is the average film temperature and it is the dependent variable of the above equation;
• Tw is the wall temperature
• A piece-wise linear profile has been assumed
– the film temperature varies from Tw to Tf in the lower half of the film and
– from Tf to Ts in the upper half
• qimp is the source term due to liquid impingement from the bulk flow to the wall.
• 𝒎𝒗𝒂𝒑 is the mass vaporization or condensation rate
• L is the latent heat associated with the phase change. It is function of saturation temperature Ts.

11 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 DPM/Secondary phase collection
• The Eulerian wall film model can interact with the discrete phase model (DPM) and Eulerian
multiphase model through source terms to the film equations.

• In the DPM interaction,

– Mass source is modeled as 𝒎𝒔 = 𝒎𝒑
– Momentum source is 𝒒𝒔 = 𝒎𝒑 ∙ (𝑽𝒑 − 𝑽𝒍 )
• 𝑽𝒑 and 𝑽𝒍 represent the particle and liquid film velocities respectively

• In the Eulerian multiphase interaction, a secondary phase in the multiphase flow is captured on
solid surfaces, forming liquid films.
– The mass source is calculated as 𝒎𝒔 = 𝜶𝒅 𝝆𝒅 𝑽𝒅𝒏 𝑨
– The momentum source is calculated as 𝒒𝒔 = 𝒎𝒔 𝑽𝒅
𝝆𝒅 𝑽𝒅𝒏
– Collection efficiency is calculated as 𝛃 =
𝑪𝒅 𝑽𝒅
• Where 𝑪𝒅 & 𝑽𝒅 are the reference (far field)secondary phase concentration and velocity respectively

12 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Splashing
• When the high velocity particles hit the wall, they are likely to splash.
– Fuel injection in the IC engine cylinder, gas turbine combustors
• The number of particles created by each impact is a user input. The minimum number of
splashed parcels is three.
– Selecting the number of splashed drops does not limit the number of splashed drops, only the number
of parcels representing those drops.
• The properties (diameter, magnitude, and direction) of the splashed parcels are randomly
sampled from the experimentally obtained distribution functions.
– For example, for each splashed parcel, a different diameter is obtained by sampling a cumulative
probability distribution function (CPDF), also referred to as F, which is obtained from a Weibull
distribution function and fitted to the data from Mundo, et al.*. The equation is
𝒅 𝒅 𝟐
– 𝒇 𝒅 = 𝟐 𝟐 𝒆𝒙𝒑 − , where 𝑫 = 𝒅𝒎𝒂𝒙 𝟐
𝑫 𝑫
– It represents the probability of finding drops of diameter d in a sample of splashed drops
*C. Mundo, M. Sommerfeld, and C. Tropea. "Droplet-Wall Collisions: Experimental Studies of the Deformation and Breakup Process". International
Journal of Multiphase Flow. 21(2). 151–173. 1995.

13 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Separation
• The film can separate from an edge if two criteria are met
– The angle between faces is sufficiently large and
– If the film inertia is above a critical value (defined by user)
• A source term in the film equation is used to remove mass and momentum from the face
corresponding to the edge upstream of where the separation occurs.
• Based on the work by Foucart, separation can occur at an edge if a critical angle, θ, is exceeded
and a Weber number based on the film, Wef , is above a minimum value.
𝟐
𝝆𝒍 𝒉 𝑽
– 𝑾𝒆𝒇 =
𝝈
• Separation criteria are
– θ > θcritical
– Wef > Wecritical
• Once separation occurs, you can specify three different models to calculate the number and
diameter of the shed particle stream at an edge, based on work by Foucart, O’Rourke and
Friedrich.

14 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Stripping
• Film stripping occurs when high relative velocities exist between the gas phase and the liquid film on a wall surface.
• At sufficiently high shear rates, Kelvin-Helmholtz waves form on the surface of the film and grow, eventually stripping off
droplets from the surface.
• As described in Mayer*, in a thin liquid sheet in a shear flow,
– waves of length λ are formed due a Kelvin-Helmholtz type of instability,
– but the waves are damped out by viscous forces in the film.
– The balance of wave growth and damping provides a term for the frequency ω
𝒇 𝒗
– 𝝎= −
𝟏/𝟐 𝟐
 𝜷𝝆𝒈𝑽𝒈𝟐
– 𝒇= 𝟐 𝝈𝝆𝒍
, where 𝜷 is the sheltering parameter with a value of 0.3
𝟖𝟐 𝝁𝒍
– 𝒗=
𝝆𝒍
• For waves to grow and eventually break off from the film, ω must be greater than zero which implies that the minimum
wave length for growing waves should be:
𝒗 𝟐/𝟑
– 𝒎𝒊𝒏 =
𝒇

* S. Mayer, . "Theory of Liquid Atomization in High Velocity Gas Streams". ARS Journal. 31. 467–473. 1961

15 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Stripping – cont.
• The average droplet size of the stripped droplet is
𝟗
– 𝒅 = 𝑭 = 𝑭 𝒎𝒊𝒏 ,
𝟐
– where F is the Diameter Coefficient (Available in GUI as input) with a default value of 0.14
• Following expression for the flow rate of drops stripped from the surface:
𝟗
– 𝒎 = 𝑪 𝝆𝒍 𝝎𝒎𝒊𝒏
𝟐
– where C is the Mass Coefficient (Available in GUI as input) with a default value of 0.5
• No mass will be taken from the film unless a Minimum (critical) Shear Rate (defined in
the GUI) is exceeded on the face where liquid film exists.

16 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Species transport –condensation
• The Eulerian wall film model can also be coupled with the mixture species transport
model to consider phase changes between film material (liquid) and the gas species
(vapor).
• The rate of phase change is governed by
𝝆𝑫 𝜹
– 𝒎𝒑𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒆 = 𝑪 𝒚𝒔𝒂𝒕 − 𝒚𝒊
𝝆𝑫 𝜹+𝑪𝒑𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒑𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒆
– Where 𝝆 is the gas mixture density, D is the mass diffusivity of the vapor species, 𝑪𝒑𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒆 is the
phase change constant and 𝒚𝒊 is the cell center mass fraction of the vapor. 𝒚𝒔𝒂𝒕 is calculated as
follows:
𝑷𝒔𝒂𝒕 (𝑻) 𝑴𝒊
– 𝒚𝒔𝒂𝒕 =
𝑷 𝑴
– Where P is the absolute pressure of the gas mixture, 𝑴𝒊 and 𝑴 are the molecular weights of the
vapor species and mixture respectively.
• By default, water vapor is assumed to be the vapor species and its saturation pressure is
computed. This can be modified in the Materials task page.

17 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Species transport –
condensation – cont.
• Condensation rate constant and Vaporization rate constants can be specified in the GUI.
Phase change constant 𝑪𝒑𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒆 takes different values for condensation and vaporization
as follows:
𝑪𝒄𝒐𝒏
– 𝑪𝒑𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒆 =
𝑪𝒗𝒂𝒑 𝒉 ∙ 𝟏𝟎−𝟒

18 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Passive Scalar Equation
• If you select the Passive Scalar option in the Eulerian Wall Film dialog box, the Fluent solver will
solve the transportation of a passive scalar due to film convection and scalar diffusion
• Note that the solution of the passive scalar transport has no influence on the solution of wall
film equation
𝝏𝒉𝒀 𝒎𝒔
+ 𝛁𝒔 ∙ 𝒉𝑽𝒍 𝒀 = 𝛁𝒔 ∙ 𝒉𝚪𝛁𝒔 𝒀 +
𝝏𝒕 𝝆𝒍
– In the above equation,
– Y is an arbitrary passive scalar
– h the film height
– 𝑽𝒍 is the mean film velocity
– 𝝆𝒍 is the liquid film density
– 𝒎𝒔 is the scalar related mas source term per unit area
– 𝚪 is the diffusivity coefficient for the scalar

19 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Setting up Eulerian Wall Film model
• Start 3D version of Fluent
• Go to Models Eulerial Wall Film
• Check the Eulerian Film Model box to
activate the model
• Once you check, there are two tabs in the
panel:
– Model Options and Setup
– Solution Method and Control

20 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Solution Options
• Solve Momentum option is available to specify
whether the momentum equation is solved for the film
– For applications like fogging, it may not be necessary to
solve the momentum of the film because the thin film of
condensate may not move
• Solve Energy option is available to specify whether the
energy equation is solved for the film
– Even if the energy equation is switched on for the bulk flow,
the user can choose not to solve energy equation for film if
it is not important

21 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Solution Options
• If DPM is interacting with EWF model, you can switch
on the DPM collection. This option allows you to
choose:
– Particle Splashing
• Set the number of splashed particles
– Particle Stripping
• Specify Critical Shear, Diameter Coefficient and Mass
Coefficient
– Edge Separation
• Specify Critical Weber number, Critical Angle, Separation
Model and whether Random Separation is required
– Random separation option allows random location of
the droplets shed by the film due to separation

22 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Solution Options – cont.
• To account for the effect of the interaction of the wall film
with Eulerian and Mixture multiphase flow, user can
enable the Phase Accretion option
– This option allows you to compute the secondary phase
collection efficiency on a wall surface.
– This option is only available when the Eulerian or Mixture (with
Slip Velocity) Multiphase model is enabled.
– Important:
• a temporary placeholder injection must be created in order
to model edge separation and edge stripping.
• The material properties for the secondary phase should be
the same as the DPM particles.
• The name of the secondary phase material should be
included in the name of the DPM particle’s material and
should be appended with the string ‘-particle’.
• for example, if the secondary phase material name is
waterliquid- eulerian, then the DPM particle’s material name
should be waterliquid-eulerian-particle.

23 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Solution Options – cont.
• To account for the effects of sharp edges, you can
enable the Treat Sharp Edge option under Solution
Options, and enter a value for the Sharp Edge Angle.
– where the edge angle is smaller than the Sharp Edge Angle,
the film wall edge is treated as a boundary edge
– At such wall edge the film becomes detached from the wall,
rather than bending around the edge and attaching to the
wall
• To account for phase changes between the film
material (liquid) and the gas species (vapor), you can
enable the Phase Change option

24 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Important to note
• The liquid film can only be a single-component fluid.
The secondary phase that is intended for the film
material cannot be a mixture of species.
• Using the Solve Wall Film option allows you to skip the
wall film solution during the gas phase solution, but
keep the variables and setup active.
• The wall film cannot be solved without first initializing
the wall film model (using the Initialize button) to
initialize the wall film variables and prepare the solver
for the solution procedure.

25 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Momentum Options
• Gravity Force
– Available only when gravity is switched on
– Accelerates the film in the direction of gravity component that is parallel to the
wall.
• Surface Shear Force
– Accelerates the film in the direction of the external flow.
• Pressure Gradient
– Accelerates the film in the direction opposing the gradient in external pressure.
– For example, if a film on the surface of a wing is being modeled and there is a
high pressure region at the leading edge with low pressure on the top of the
wing, this term will tend to move a uniform film towards the low pressure
region on the top of the wing.
• Spreading Term
– Available only when Gravity and Pressure Gradient options are selected
– Accelerates the flow in the direction opposing the gradient in height, moving
the film towards regions of lower thickness
• Surface Tension
– Available only when the Pressure Gradient option is selected

26 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Material Options
• Choose the Film Material
• Choose the Film Vapor Material if the Phase Change
option is selected
• Specify the surface tension value

27 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Setting Eulerian Wall Film Solution Controls
• Maximum Thickness
– If the film becomes thicker than this value, the solver will clip
the thickness to this value
• Minimum Thickness
– If the DPM collection/secondary phase collection results in a
film thickness smaller than this value, film will not be formed
– If the film formation is a very slow process and you can set this
value to a very low value to see the film formation
• Wall film calculation is always transient
– For steady state bulk flow, you can specify the film time step
size
– You can also use adaptive time stepping, which requires
specifying maximum Courant Number. Default value of 1. This
can be lowered for better stability
– For transient cases, the Number of Time Steps per main flow
time step can be specified.

28 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Setting Eulerian Wall Film Solution Controls
• For implicit time discretization calculations, you can
control the number of Sub-Iterations and the point at
which the sub-steps are stopped when the film
residual drops below the value set in the Sub-Iteration
Stop option.
• If the DPM Collections option is enabled in the Model
Options and Setup tab, you can set how often the DPM
phase is calculated for the film by specifying a value for
the Film Steps per DPM Step.

29 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Setting up the Initial/Boundary Condition
• You can set initial or boundary condition for the wall film model in
the Wall Film tab of the Wall boundary condition panel.
– For initial condition, you can specify
• Film Height (m)
• Film X,Y and Z velocities (m/s)
• Film temperature (K)
• Film Passive Scalar [-]
• Use additional Source Terms (mass/momentum/energy)
– As boundary condition, you can specify
• Film mass flux (kg/m2s)
• Film X,Y and Z momentum flux (n/m2)
• Incoming Film Temperature (K)
• Film Passive Scalar Flux (kg/m²s)

– For initial/boundary conditions, you can either use constant value or

hook a DEFINE_PROFILE macro
• solidification/melting, sublimation/deposition can be introduced
as source terms using these macros.

30 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Setting up the Initial/Boundary Condition
• Flow Momentum Coupling option
– It allows the liquid film and the gas flow to share the same
velocity at the interface of the liquid-gas interface using a
two-way coupling.
– When this option is not selected, the coupling between the
liquid film and the gas flow is only one-way, i.e., while the
gas flow impacts the film flow, the film flow does not
impact the bulk of the gas flow.

31 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Post processing
• Following post processing variables are available
– Film Thickness
– Film Mass
– Film Temperature (when Solve Energy is enabled)
– Film X-Velocity
– Film Y-Velocity
– Film Z-Velocity
– Film Velocity Magnitude
– Film Effective Pressure
– Film Surface X-Velocity
– Film Surface Y-Velocity
– Film Surface Z-Velocity
– Film Surface Velocity Magnitude
– Film Surface Temperature (when Solve Energy is enabled)
– Film Passive Scalar (when Scalar transport is enabled)
– Film Courant Number
– Film Weber Number / Film Stripping Weber Number (in case of stripping)
– Film Stripped Mass Source (when Particle Stripping is enabled)
– Film Stripped Diam (when Particle Stripping is enabled)
– Film DPM Mass Source (when DPM Collection is enabled)
– Film DPM Energy Source (when DPM Collection and Solve Energy are enabled)
– Film DPM X-Momentum Source (when DPM Collection is enabled)
– Film DPM Y-Momentum Source (when DPM Collection is enabled)
– Film DPM Z-Momentum Source (when DPM Collection is enabled)
– Film Shed Mass (when Edge Separation is enabled)
– Film Secondary Phase Mass (when Phase Accretion is enabled)
– Film Secondary Phase Collection Coef (when Phase Accretion is enabled)

32 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Validations

16.0 Release

33 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Validation of collection efficiency
• The collection efficiency is defined as the
ratio of surface to free-stream water
mass fluxes
• For all the icing calculation, the first step
is to accurately predict the collection
efficiency
• Collection efficiency is available as an
inbuilt feature in R14.5
• This approach is validated against
collection efficiency data for Naca0012

34 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Validation of Film thickness – case 1
• Experimental data for film thickness is taken from following paper:
• Roy R.P. & Jain S. “A study of thin water film flow down an inclined plate without and
with countercurrent air flow”, Experiments in Fluids 7, pp. 318-328 (1989)

0.65

0.60
Film thickness in

0.55

0.50 measurrment

0.45 computation
mm 

0.40

0.35
200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Film Re 

35 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Validation of Film thickness – Case 2
• Validation - Arienti et al. “Modeling Wall Film Formation and Breakup Using an Integrated
Interface-Tracking/Discrete-Phase Approach, M. Arienti et al”

Simulation with steady particle tracking is done and results seems in good
agreement with experimental data.

36 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Wall film thickness variation along the center
line of the geometry

37 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Best Practices

16.0 Release

38 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Available material
Theory & Usage:
Refer to ANSYS R16 documentation:
• ANSYS Fluent 16.0 Theory Guide: Chapter 19: Eulerian Wall Films
– Documentation link:- help/flu_th/flu_th_models_wallfilm.html
• ANSYS Fluent 16.0 User’s Guide: Chapter 27: Modeling Eulerian Wall Films
– Documentation link:- help/flu_ug/flu_ug_models_wallfilm.html
Tutorial:
• Two step by step tutorials on using Eulerian Wall Film model with DPM and Eulerian
multiphase are available on request.
• Available on customer portal: Windshield Defogging:
https://support.ansys.com/AnsysCustomerPortal/en_us/Knowledge%20Resources/Tutorials%2
0&%20Training%20Materials/Training%20Files/Windshield+Defogging+using+ANSYS+Fluent+1
4.5+Eulerian+Wall+Film+Model+(EWF)

39 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Best Practices
• Before the wall film model is initialized using “Initialize” button available in the
ModelsEulerian Wall Film  Model Options and Setup page, the user must set boundary
condition for at least one wall by switching on the Eulerian Film wall option in the Wall Film tab
of the wall boundary condition panel.
– If none of the walls is selected for Eulerian wall film, the solver will throw following warning on
initialization
Warning: Unable to initialize Eulerian Wall Film model.
• While running the calculation, a non-zero value of the courant number suggests that the film is
formed.
– If film does not get formed, try lower value of the minimum film thickness
• In general, film heat transfer calculations require time step sizes smaller than the momentum
calculations.
• EWF model is compatible with wall motion specified in the momentum tab of a wall boundary
condition with Moving Wall option. It is not compatible with MDM.
• EWF phase change is suitable for problems where in the vapor is mixed with non-condensable
gases (e.g. water vapor + air).
– Though it works for pure liquid and vapor set up, the accuracy of results is not guaranteed.

40 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Stripping cont.

41 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Secondary Phase Accretion
• In an Eulerian multiphase flow, the secondary phase to be collected on a solid surface
must have the same material as defined in the Eulerian wall film model.
• When the secondary phase is captured by the wall surface, its mass and momentum are
removed from the multiphase flow, and added as source terms to the continuity and
momentum equations respectively, of the wall film.

42 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Secondary Phase Accretion
cont.

43 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Coupling of Wall Film with
Mixture Species Transport
• The Eulerian wall film model can also be coupled with the mixture species transport
model to consider phase changes between film material (liquid) and the gas species
(vapor)
• Please note that this model may be invoked with pure vapor and liquid, however, since
the formulation is diffusion governed, it will work the best only when the gas phase must
be a mixture of vapor and non-condensable gases

44 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Coupling of Wall Film with
Mixture Species Transport cont.

45 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential

 Film Sub-Models – Coupling of Wall Film with
Mixture Species Transport cont.

46 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. December 15, 2015 ANSYS Confidential