Dear Community,
as you know SimScale comes with a unique public project library which contains nearly 200 different simulation projects. In the last month, a lot of you used these projects as a source of inspiration or to create your own projects based on our library.
Nevertheless there are some simulations which could be improved or extended. And that is where we would like to get you involved! In the next weeks we will present projects from different fields which should be improved or extended. For those of you who are very committed, we also have some nice prizes like our famous SimScale T-Shirts. 
[Project #1 - Simulation of airflow around a football]2
Some of you may remember our blog post regarding the soccer world cup last year. Although the simulation gave us some nice results, there are some things that we could improve.
Meshing
The orginal mesh was created using a simple setup of snappyHexMesh operation by defining mesh refinement on the surface and on a regional around the wall. Additionally, layer elements were extruded on the surface to resolve the boundary layer more accurate.
Slice through the mesh.
Layer elements on the surface of the ball
Our aim is now to improve the overall accuracy of the simulation results, which highly depend on the mesh. We therefore have to think about the meshing parameters and options, which are:
- The Size of the flow domain arround the ball
- Mesh refinement level on the surface of the ball
- Layer mesh properties on the suface of the ball
- Size and refinement level of the refinement box
- Additonaly we should also think about improving the surface
representation. Especially the joint between the panels!
Simulation Setup
Besides the mesh — which forms the basis of a successful simulation — there are also some aspects of the simulation setup which we should discuss.
- First thing that comes to mind regarding the simulation setup is the amazing free kick of Roberto Carlos in 1997.
What makes this awesome goal possible is the so-called Magnus effect which is based on the superposition of translational and rotational motion of the ball. Here it would make sense to capture also the rotation of the ball around its axis.
2. Another interesting point could be the roughness of the ball. Modern footballs are not completely smooth. Adapting the wall roughness could allow us to investiagte if this has an impact on the aerodynamical behavior.
Now let’s get started! I’m really looking forward to your ideas and modification. Please feel free to discuss and don’t forget to publish a link to the project containing your modification. I would suggest to start with meshing
Cheers,
Milad
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