About Inlets

Inlets describe the fluid behavior at the openings where the flow enters the fluid domain.

See Also
Defining a Velocity Inlet
Defining a Volume Flow Rate Inlet
Defining a Stagnation Inlet
Defining a Mass Flow Inlet

The following types of inlets are available, and they differ in the manner in which they describe the velocity or pressure with which fluid flows into the fluid domain.

  • Velocity inlets describe the flow in terms of the velocity of a particle flowing through the inlet.
  • Volume flow rate inlets describe the flow in terms of the volume of fluid that passes through the inlet in a specified time period.
  • Stagnation inlets describe the flow in terms of the stagnation gauge pressure at the inlet.
  • Mass flow inlets describe the flow in terms of mass flow rate or mass flux through the inlet.

You can define inlets on the surfaces of the fluid domain only.

For incompressible flows, you can prescribe additional inflow conditions for velocity (velocity inlets), temperature, and turbulence variables. If a flow boundary condition is not specified explicitly for a particular variable, the app assumes a homogeneous Neumann condition. This approach permits the variable (temperature, for example) to vary at the inlet and allows the incoming fluid to correspond to that local variable.