A Rapid Duct Development and Diagnostic Tool (R3DT) for Numerically Simulating Airflow through Complex Three Dimensional Ducts

A Rapid Duct Development and Diagnostic airflow simulation Tool (R3DT) has been developed that allows computational fluid dynamics (CFD) airflow simulations to be performed on complex three-dimensional (3D) Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) ducts quickly, easily and cost effectively. R3DT is a very automated approach to performing grid generation and CFD. It draws upon the strengths of the tools of ICEM CFD Engineering to create a fully tetrahedral mesh for complicated air duct geometries based on the original CAD data. It also uses FLUENT™ as the tetrahedral CFD solver. R3DT enables designers to make informed design decisions based on the predicted performance of their duct designs early in the development process, with the data still in CAD format. The concepts behind R3DT, as well as its application to a series of three-dimensional ducts with varying levels of geometrical complexity will be presented.