CFD INVESTIGATION OF LAMINAR AND TURBULENT FLOW AROUND A SMOOTH SPHERE AND AN NFL BALL

Abstract

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the flow around a scaled-down National Football League (NFL) ball submerged in water, with special attention given to the velocity field in the wake region behind the ball. The simulation was performed in a channel with a rectangular cross-section. Laminar and turbulent flows were developed, where the Reynolds number (Re) ranged from 1,300 to 50,000. An unstructured tetrahedral mesh with refined regions was used to accurately represent the flow characteristics around the ball, particularly in high-velocity zones. The CFX module of the ANSYS software was used to obtain numerical results and the velocity field. The reduced model of the NFL ball was made in SolidWorks. The simulation results were validated by comparing the flow around a sphere (ping-pong ball) with widely recognized experimental and numerical data from the literature. The results reveal the formation of distinct flow patterns and vortex structures in both laminar and turbulent regimes, with notable differences in the wake region as the Reynolds number increases.