Windloading of a Satellite Dish

[Anonymous]

Good Afternoon All,

I'l trying to calculate the force due to windloading of a reflector the diagram below shows my set up.

(wind)    ----->    )   (reflector)

I started looking up the aerodynamic tutorial with a sports car. This had a simplified approach with just one part, the air, with the shape of the car cut out. Is it possible to copy this simulation but with an assembly approach? When I do a two part assembly air.ipt and dish.ipt and I apply the applicable setup items and I take the Wall Calculator to find the wind load. Should I be selecting all the surfaces of the dish and using the summary output or should I only be looking at the front surface?

Thanks in advance!

-Matt

[apolo_vanderberg]

Yes you can do an assembly if you like. If you're not doing thermal ther is not specific need to mesh the solid, allowing you to focus more elements on capturing the geometry as well as any/all critical flow-fields

Yes you can use the wall calculator to get the forces acting on the dish. Depending on what you are looking for you may need to grab more than just the front face as the flow downstream can have an impact on the overall drag/force

In the car example, depending on how separated the flow is there will be a low pressure section aft of the car so more than just the windshield will contribute to the total drag. Doing this will also allow you to see just how critical the other faces are in terms of overall force contribution