Secondly, there is the thickness of the viscous and thermal boundary layers. In order for the model to include the correct amount of damping, the boundary layers need to be resolved. Ideally this is done using a Boundary Layers mesh. The
Thickness of first boundary layer and the
Number of boundary layers should be set such that they resolve the boundary layer at the specific modeling frequency. Remember that the boundary layer thickness scales as one over the square root of the frequency.
where δv is the viscous boundary layer thickness and
Pr is the Prandtl number. If the Womersley number is very small, say
Wo < 0.1, the effect associated with the losses in the viscous boundary layer can normally be disregarded. In this case, the boundary layer do not need to be meshed and a
Slip condition can be used instead of a
No-slip condition. The same is true for the thermal boundary layer thickness compared to the tube radius. Here, an
Isothermal condition can be replaced by an
Adiabatic condition.
If the No-slip or
Isothermal conditions are kept (when
Wo < 0.1), then remember to add at least one boundary layer mesh that is of roughly the size of the acoustic boundary layer. If this is not done, erroneous losses can be introduced in the model.