I am working on a CFD analysis of a 80m2 greenhouse used for drying seeds. The space has 8 shelves stacked at 4 different heights and openable windows for excess moisture and heat to be removed. I use both '2-k-e' and 'constant effective velocity' solvers and used them separately as well as in succession to generate results. I vary Relaxation Factor on x/y/z velocities, mass and temperature and I also vary Termination Residuals to direct the solver towards convergence.
My question is to anybody with experience of none-symmetrical CFD work at scales close to room/building level; what is a reasonable number of iterations before ditching the simulation as non-convergent? I have had convergence at up to 100,000 iterations when my PC was running over the weekend, so my inclination is to wait, but this particular CFD task leads to a lot of unstable, osculating patterns on Normalised Residuals (see attached) and I wonder if it is worth giving up as soon as the residuals begins to follow similar patterns and ‘repeat’ themselves?