Pressure losses in ducts used for heating and ventilating have a significant impact on overall system energy requirements and component sizing. CFD modeling helps eliminate the guesswork when estimating duct losses. Traditional duct fitting loss coefficients are based on fully-developed flow and don't correctly account for close-coupled fittings. CFD allows you to quantify the real losses and avoid excessive margins of safety in your system design.

Flow pathlines colored by pressure quantify head loss and reveal that turning vanes in the 180 hard-bend are not able to eliminate a large separated region downstream of the fitting.