Hi, for that you can use the CFX, but I advice the FLUENT for sure because it's more adaptable to whatever you want to do. I also know that Abaqus has a CFD solver and for what I read it is a good one, but I never worked with it. So, in short, if you want to perform a simple CFD analysis without considering lot's of variables you can use CFX because it's easy to handle and user-friendly, otherwise I recommend FLUENT, but it will give more work to prepare all the variables and to define the parameters of the analysis.

I'm a little sceptic to use Solidworks add-ons regarding FEA, I used a couple of times for simple analysis ... but when I need more consistent results I use Abaqus or Ansys products. In my opinion I think Solidworks needs to improve their FEA add-ons.

I attach a document to help you define all the parameters, I use this one when I need to perform new types of analysis.

Hope this help you to!

Congratz

I've solved several problems like this with floworks an add-on of Solidworks.

Hi, for that you can use the CFX, but I advice the FLUENT for sure because it's more adaptable to whatever you want to do. I also know that Abaqus has a CFD solver and for what I read it is a good one, but I never worked with it. So, in short, if you want to perform a simple CFD analysis without considering lot's of variables you can use CFX because it's easy to handle and user-friendly, otherwise I recommend FLUENT, but it will give more work to prepare all the variables and to define the parameters of the analysis.

I'm a little sceptic to use Solidworks add-ons regarding FEA, I used a couple of times for simple analysis ... but when I need more consistent results I use Abaqus or Ansys products. In my opinion I think Solidworks needs to improve their FEA add-ons.

I attach a document to help you define all the parameters, I use this one when I need to perform new types of analysis.

Hope this help you to!

Congratz

Thanks alessandro and Dino. I really appreciate your feed backs. I'm having problems right from the geometry itself. This is the heater i've to model . I've been advised to create a small part of tank and one tube for simplifying the problem. Even that i find pretty difficult. problem is that the glass tube has an outer covering with vacuum in between. Also i don't kno how to change material properties (tank is mild steel and tubes are borosylicate glass) in a single geometry. I'm in real need of help

I suppose the radiation heat transfer should be considered.

Dear Sooray, would you like to check the problem together ? If You have a CAD file we can compare the results with floworks and fluent. In my experience results has been appreciated and brought to a definitive commercial product: I'm quinte experienced in both sw and for this kind of application Solidworks is more results oriented. By the way it's easy to find many solved problems on the web with both sw.

@Alessandro i've a cad file which i tried in Fluent.But at the end of calculation, some error poped up.I don't know what caused the error.Anyway i'm sending you the file

Perfect. I'll calculate it and give you an Ftp access to check it out.

@Sooray: Can you define "evacuated"? I just wonder how applicable a CFD solver to a very low pressure problem is. Getting a converged solution is - in case applicability is not given - the worst case scenario: Convergence make you believe that applicability is given even if this is not the case. You should check this.

@Petkow thank you for answering. Evacuated in the sense that glass tubes of this water heater are two concentric tubes with vacuum in between.Solar radiation enters through the outerglass tube,it is absorbed on the inner tube(an absorber coating is provided on the outer surfacee of inner tube).heat is transfered to the water inside the inner glass tube.Vacuum acts as insulation to avoid convection heat loss.

@Sooray: Ok, so the vacuum space is flow wise irrelevant (apart from insulation property and radiation absorption). Thanks for clarification.