Application of numerical analysis in the design and small-scale intelligent manufacturing process of porous fences

This paper presents an application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique for designing of protective fences for shelter from snow and winds commonly used on offshore rigs and other facilities in cold regions. The CFD simulation of real situations provided detailed information about the flow characteristics behind the fence and the effective shelter zone. Such flow details are usually very expensive, time consuming and difficult to obtain by physical experiments. The numerical simulations found that the shape of pores and surface shear stress has significant impact on the reattachment length and the size of effective fence zone. The effective shelter distance can be increased by avoiding sharp angular corners in the porous pores and reducing surface shear stress. The 3D modelling and CFD simulation provide detailed aerodynamics flow characteristics and stress distributions that allow evaluating a number of designs cost effectively. The technique can be integrated with small-scale intelligent manufacturing system (SIMS) for flexible design and manufacturing of fences.