Circular Cylinder Crossflow at Re = 40 (Tritton & Coutanceau-Bouard Benchmark)

External Aerodynamics (CFD)PASS · 1.89%

Steady 3D laminar crossflow over a circular cylinder of diameter D = 5 mm in a wind tunnel domain at Reynolds number Re = 40, verified against the classical experimental and numerical drag benchmark of Tritton, Coutanceau & Bouard, and Henderson (Cd = 1.580 wi… show full text

Tolerance:: 5%

Open & Solve in BrowserSign in or register to launch this verified model in WebCAE

Open & Solve in Browser

Problem statement

Geometry: Circular cylinder of diameter D = 5 mm and span L = 10 mm placed horizontally in a rectangular domain 300 × 120 × 10 mm (blockage ratio B = D/H = 1.67%).
Material: Air at 20 °C (density rho = 1.204 kg/m³, dynamic viscosity mu = 1.825e-5 Pa·s, kinematic viscosity nu = 1.516e-5 m²/s), incompressible steady laminar Navier-Stokes model.
Boundary conditions: Inlet uniform velocity U_inf = 0.1213 m/s (Re_D = 40 based on cylinder diameter), outlet gauge pressure 0 Pa, slip symmetry on domain top, bottom, and spanwise side faces (surface numbers 2, 3, 4, 5), no-slip viscous wall on cylinder surface (surface number 7).
Measured quantity: Total aerodynamic drag coefficient Cd on the cylinder surface, verified against experimental wind tunnel benchmark Cd = 1.580; secondary checks on flow symmetry and zero lift (|Cl| < 0.01), positive drag force Fd > 0, and mass conservation.

WebCAE Terminal

Paste these commands into the Terminal panel inside WebCAE. They use the same text DSL as the application; run one command per line:

units mm
import path="cfd_cylinder_laminar_re40.step" format=step
mesh tet size=4
cfd fluid air
cfd set mode=steady speed=0.12126 turbulence=laminar iterations=300 tol=1e-5 threads=8 cfl=6 multigrid=0
cfd inlet surface number 1 speed=0.12126 intensity=0.01
cfd outlet surface number 6 pressure=0
cfd symmetry surface number 2
cfd symmetry surface number 3
cfd symmetry surface number 4
cfd symmetry surface number 5
cfd wall surface number 7 monitor=on
solve cfd

Results comparison

Reference value	1.580
Our result	1.610
Deviation	1.89%
Tolerance	5%
Status	PASS · 1.89%
Element family	Finite-volume CFD
Mesh details	12111 узлов, 43976 тет (Netgen P1 tet mesh, обтекание кругового цилиндра Re=40)

Updated: 2026-10-19 · WebCAE solver