CNH-Industrial – Feasibility study of applying Lattice Boltzmann methods for agricultural CFD applications

CNHIndustrial in Zedelgem is developing and manufacturing Combine Harvesters, Forage Harvesters and Large Square Balers. Within CNHI, Zedelgem is recognized as a center of excellence for product design.

Within the simulation team, we perform Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations, to investigate air and fluid flows within and around the agricultural machines. It is important to have realistic material parameters set in these models, to obtain accurate simulation results. Currently, we are using both commercial and open-source, traditional CFD software packages such as openFOAM and StarCCM+. Recently however, a new type of CFD solvers has emerged, called Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) solvers. This new method is attractive since it is a combination of an Eulerian (using a computational mesh) and Lagrangian (meshless) method.

• In this thesis, it is the intention to investigate the feasibility of using a LBM solver to perform air and fluid flow simulations in and around agricultural machines.
• In this thesis, you will learn to:
  • Use traditional CFD solvers, e.g. StarCCM+
  • Use a LBM solver
  • Set up air and fluid simulations in both solvers, and compare the results