Numerical simulation of flow of micropolar fluids in a channel with a porous wall

Two‐dimensional steady, laminar, and incompressible flow of a micropolar fluid in a channel with no‐slip at one wall and constant uniform injection through the other wall is considered for different values of the Reynolds number R. The main flow stream is superimposed by constant injection velocity at the porous wall. The micropolar model introduced by Eringen is used to describe the working fluid. An extension of Berman's similarity transformations is used to reduce governing equations to a set of nonlinear coupled ordinary differential equations (ODEs) in dimensionless form. An algorithm based on finite difference method is employed to solve these ODEs and Richardson's extrapolation is used to obtain higher order accuracy. It has been found that the magnitude of shear stress increases strictly at the impermeable wall whereas it decreases steadily at the permeable wall, by increasing the injection velocity. The maximum value of streamwise velocity and that of the microrotation both increase with increasing the magnitude of R. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

MHD flow and heat transfer of micropolar fluid between two porous disks

A numerical study is carried out for the axisymmetric steady laminar incompressible flow of an electrically conducting micropolar fluid between two infinite parallel porous disks with the constant uniform injection through the surface of the disks. The fluid is subjected to an external transverse magnetic field. The governing nonlinear equations of motion are transformed into a dimensionless form through von Karman’s similarity transformation. An algorithm based on a finite difference scheme is used to solve the reduced coupled ordinary differential equations under associated boundary conditions. The effects of the Reynolds number, the magnetic parameter, the micropolar parameter, and the Prandtl number on the flow velocity and temperature distributions are discussed. The results agree well with those of the previously published work for special cases. The investigation predicts that the heat transfer rate at the surfaces of the disks increases with the increases in the Reynolds number, the magnetic parameter, and the Prandtl number. The shear stresses decrease with the increase in the injection while increase with the increase in the applied magnetic field. The shear stress factor is lower for micropolar fluids than for Newtonian fluids, which may be beneficial in the flow and thermal control in the polymeric processing.     

Self-sustained oscillations between two tandem cylinders at Reynolds number 1,000

This study focuses on the self-sustained oscillatory flow characteristics between two tandem circular cylinders of equal diameter placed in a uniform inflow. The Reynolds number (Re _D ), based on the cylinder diameter, was around 1,000 and all experiments were performed in a recirculating water channel. The streamwise distance between two tandem cylinders ranged within 1.5 ≤ X _c/D ≤ 7.0. Here X _c denotes the center-to-center distance between two tandem cylinders. For all experiments studied herein, quantitative velocity measurements were performed using hot-film anemometer and the LDV system. The laser sheet technique was employed for qualitative flow visualization. The wavelet transform was applied to elucidate the temporal variation and phase difference between two spectral components of the velocity signals detected in the flow field. The remarkable finding was that when two tandem circular cylinders were spaced at a distance within 4.5 ≤ X _c/D ≤ 5.5, two symmetrical unstable shear layers with a certain wavelength were observed to impinge onto the downstream cylinder. The responding frequency (f _u ), measured between these two cylinders, was much higher than the natural shedding frequency behind a single isolated cylinder at the same Re _D . This responding frequency decreased as the distance X _c/D increased. Not until X _c/D ≥ 6.0, did it recover to the natural shedding frequency behind a single isolated cylinder. Between two tandem cylinders, the Strouhal numbers (St _c = f _u X _c/U_c) maintained a nearly constant value of 3, indicating the self-sustained oscillating flow characteristics with a wavelength X _c/3. Here U _c is the convection speed of the unstable shear layers between two tandem cylinders. At Re _D = 1,000, the self-sustained oscillating characteristics between two tandem circular cylinders were proven to exhibit a sustained flow pattern, not just a sporadic phenomenon.     

Flow of micropolar fluid between two orthogonally moving porous disks

The unsteady,laminar,incompressible,and two-dimensional flow of a micropolar fluid between two orthogonally moving porous coaxial disks is considered.The extension of von Karman’s similarity transformations is used to reduce the governing partial differential equations(PDEs) to a set of non-linear coupled ordinary differential equations(ODEs) in the dimensionless form.The analytical solutions are obtained by employing the homotopy analysis method(HAM).The effects of various physical parameters such as the expansion ratio and the permeability Reynolds number on the velocity fields are discussed in detail.     

Boundary-layer flow of a micropolar fluid due to a stretching wall

Summary  A Theoretical analysis is carried out to study the boundary-layer flow over a continuously moving surface through an otherwise quiescent micropolar fluid. The transformed boundary-layer equations are solved numerically for a power-law surface velocity using the Keller-box method. The effects of the micropolar K and exponent m parameters on the velocity and microrotation field as well as on the skin-friction group are discussed in a detailed manner. It is shown that there is a near-similarity solution of this problem. The accuracy of the present solution is also discussed. Accepted for publication 1 April 1996     

A transient natural convection of micropolar fluids over a vertical cylinder

A transient free convective boundary layer flow of micropolar fluids past a semi-infinite cylinder is analysed in the present study. The transformed dimensionless governing equations for the flow, microrotation and heat transfer are solved by using the implicit scheme. For the validation of the current numerical method heat transfer results for a Newtonian fluid case where the vortex viscosity is zero are compared with those available in the existing literature, and an excellent agreement is obtained. The obtained results concerning velocity, microrotation and temperature across the boundary layer are illustrated graphically for different values of various parameters and the dependence of the flow and temperature fields on these parameters is discussed. An increase in the vortex viscosity tends to increase the magnitude of microrotation and thus decreases the peak velocity of fluid flow. An increase in the vortex viscosity in micropolar fluids is shown to decrease the heat transfer rate.     

On the Chebyshev collocation spectral approach to stability of fluid flow in a porous medium

In this paper, the temporal development of small disturbances in a pressure‐driven fluid flow through a channel filled with a saturated porous medium is investigated. The Brinkman flow model is employed in order to obtain the basic flow velocity distribution. Under normal mode assumption, the linearized governing equations for disturbances yield a fourth‐order eigenvalue problem, which reduces to the well‐known Orr–Sommerfeld equation in some limiting cases solved numerically by a spectral collocation technique with expansions in Chebyshev polynomials. The critical Reynolds number Re_c, the critical wave number α_c, and the critical wave speed c_c are obtained for a wide range of the porous medium shape factor parameter S. It is found that a decrease in porous medium permeability has a stabilizing effect on the fluid flow. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nonsimilar incompressible laminar boundary-layer flows in micropolar fluids

Summary The solution of the steady laminar incompressible nonsimilar boundary-layer problem for micropolar fluids over two-dimensional and axisymmetric bodies has been presented. The partial differential equations governing the flow have been transformed into new co-ordinates having finite range. The resulting equations have been solved numerically using implicit finite-difference scheme. The computations have been carried out for a cylinder and a sphere. The results indicate that the separation in micropolar fluids occurs at earlier streamwise locations as compared to Newtonian fluids. The skin friction and velocity profiles depend on the shape of the body and are almost insensitive to microrotation or coupling parameter, provided the coupling parameter is small. On the other hand, the microrotation profiles and microrotation gradient depend on the microrotation parameter and they are insensitive to the coupling parameter.

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Zusammenfassung Es wird die Lösung des stationären Grenzschichtproblems inkompressibler mikropolarer Flüssigkeiten für den Fall der Nichtähnlichkeit bei zweidimensionalen und achsensymmetrischen Körpern vorgelegt. Die dem Problem zugrunde liegenden partiellen Differentialgleichungen werden durch Einführung neuer Koordinaten auf ein endliches Gebiet transformiert. Die so erhaltenen Gleichungen werden mit Hilfe eines impliziten Differenzenverfahrens numerisch gelöst. Die Rechnung wird für den Zylinder und die Kugel durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß die Grenzschichtablösung früher erfolgt als bei vergleichbaren newtonschen Flüssigkeiten. Wandreibung und Geschwindigkeitsprofile hängen von der Gestalt des Körpers ab und sind nahezu unempfindlich gegen Mikrorotation und Kopplungsparameter, vorausgesetzt, daß der letztere klein ist. Dagegen hängen das Profil und der Gradient der Mikrorotation vom Parameter der Mikrorotation ab und sind ebenfalls unempfindlich gegen die Kopplungsparameter.

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With 6 figures     

Microscopic particle image velocimetry measurements of transition to turbulence in microscale capillaries

The character of transitional capillary flow is investigated using pressure-drop measurements and instantaneous velocity fields acquired by microscopic PIV in the streamwise–wall-normal plane of a 536 μm capillary over the Reynolds-number range 1,800 ≤ Re ≤ 3,400 in increments of 100. The pressure-drop measurements reveal a deviation from laminar behavior at Re = 1,900 with the differences between the measured and the predicted laminar-flow pressure drop increasing with increasing Re. These observations are consistent with the characteristics of the mean velocity profiles which begin to deviate from the parabolic laminar profile at Re = 1,900, interpreted as the onset of transition, by becoming increasingly flatter and fuller with increasing Re. A fully-turbulent state is attained at Re ≅ 3,400 where the mean velocity profile collapses onto the mean profile of fully-developed turbulent pipe flow from an existing direct numerical simulation at Re = 5,300. Examination of the instantaneous velocity fields acquired by micro-PIV in the range 1,900 ≤ Re < 3,400 reveal that transitional flows at the microscale are composed of a subset of velocity fields illustrating a purely laminar behavior and a subset of fields that capture significant departure from laminar behavior. The fraction of velocity fields displaying non-laminar behavior increases with increasing Re, consistent with past observations of a growing number of intermittent turbulent spots bounded by nominally laminar flow in macroscale pipe flow with increasing Re. Instantaneous velocity fields that are non-laminar in character consistently contain multiple spanwise vortices that appear to streamwise-align to form larger-scale interfaces that incline slightly away from the wall. The characteristics of these “trains” of vortices are reminiscent of the spatial features of hairpin-like vortices and hairpin vortex packets often observed in fully-turbulent wall-bounded flow at both the macro- and micro-scales. Finally, single-point statistics computed from the non-laminar subsets at each transitional Re, including root-mean-square velocities and the Reynolds shear stress, reveal a gradual and smooth maturation of the patches of disordered motion toward a fully-turbulent state with increasing Re.     

Numerical study of buoyancy- and thermocapillary-driven flows in a cavity

Thermocapillary- and buoyancy-driven convection in open cavities with differentially heated endwalls is investigated by numerical solutions of the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the energy equation. We studied the thermocapillary and buoyancy convection in the cavities, filled with low-Prandtl-number fluids, with two aspect-ratiosA=1 and 4, Grashof number up to 10⁵ and Reynolds number ⋎Re⋎≤10⁴. Our results show that thermocapillary can have a quite significant effect on the stability of a primarily buoyancy-driven flow, as well as on the flow structures and dynamic behavior for both additive effect (i.e., positiveRe) and opposing effect (i.e., negativeRe).     

Numerical studies of slow viscous rotating flow past a sphere. III

The flow of steady incompressible viscous fluid rotating about the z-axis with angular velocity ω and moving with velocity u past a sphere of radius a which is kept fixed at the origin is investigated by means of a numerical method for small values of the Reynolds number Re_ω. The Navier–Stokes equations governing the axisymmetric flow can be written as three coupled non-linear partial differential equations for the streamfunction, vorticity and rotational velocity component. Central differences are applied to the partial differential equations for solution by the Peaceman–Rachford ADI method, and the resulting algebraic equations are solved by the ‘method of sweeps’. The results obtained by solving the non-linear partial differential equations are compared with the results obtained by linearizing the equations for very small values of Re_ω. Streamlines are plotted for Ψ = 0·05, 0·2, 0·5 for both linear and non-linear cases. The magnitude of the vorticity vector near the body, i.e. at z = 0·2, is plotted for Re_ω = 0·05, 0·24, 0·5. The correction to the Stokes drag as a result of rotation of the fluid is calculated.     

On the Reynolds number scaling of vorticity production at no-slip walls during vortex-wall collisions

Recently, numerical studies revealed two different scaling regimes of the peak enstrophy Z and palinstrophy P during the collision of a dipole with a no-slip wall [Clercx and van Heijst, Phys. Rev. E 65, 066305, 2002]: Z μ Re^0.8{Z\propto{\rm Re}^{0.8}} and P μ Re^2.25{P\propto {\rm Re}^{2.25}} for 5 × 10² ≤ Re ≤ 2 × 10⁴ and Z μ Re^0.5{Z\propto{\rm Re}^{0.5}} and P μ Re^1.5{P\propto{\rm Re}^{1.5}} for Re ≥ 2 × 10⁴ (with Re based on the velocity and size of the dipole). A critical Reynolds number Re _c (here, Re_c ? 2×10⁴{{\rm Re}_c\approx 2\times 10^4}) is identified below which the interaction time of the dipole with the boundary layer depends on the kinematic viscosity ν. The oscillating plate as a boundary-layer problem can then be used to mimick the vortex-wall interaction and the following scaling relations are obtained: Z μ Re^3/4, P μ Re^9/4{Z\propto{\rm Re}^{3/4}, P\propto {\rm Re}^{9/4}} , and dP/dt μ Re^11/4{\propto {\rm Re}^{11/4}} in agreement with the numerically obtained scaling laws. For Re ≥ Re _c the interaction time of the dipole with the boundary layer becomes independent of the kinematic viscosity and, applying flat-plate boundary-layer theory, this yields: Z μ Re^1/2{Z\propto{\rm Re}^{1/2}} and P μ Re^3/2{P\propto {\rm Re}^{3/2}}.     

Flow and heat transfer in a moving fluid over a moving flat surface

In this paper, a numerical analysis of the momentum and heat transfer of an incompressible fluid past a parallel moving sheet based on composite reference velocity U is carried out. A single set of equations has been formulated for both momentum and thermal boundary layer problems containing the following parameters: r the ratio of the free stream velocity to the composite reference velocity, σ (Prandtl number) the ratio of the momentum diffusivity of the fluid to its thermal diffusivity, and E _c (E _ck ) (Eckert number). The present study has been carried out in the domain 0 ≤ r ≤ 1. It is found that the direction of the wall shear changes in such an interval and an increase of the parameter r yields an increase in temperature.      

Forced convection flow over a microsphere

Forced convection heat transfer characteristics around a microsphere subjected to uniform heat flux boundary condition is numerically investigated in this study. Moderate to high values of Reynolds number and a wide range of Prandtl number are considered. The analysis assumes that the continuity assumption is valid and hence the Navier–Stokes equations are solved for the range of Knudsen number of 0.001 ≤ Kn ≤ 0.1. The appropriate boundary conditions at the surface of the microsphere; the velocity slip and temperature jump are applied. The effect of the flow parameters: Re, Pr and Kn on the velocity and temperature distribution is presented and hence a better control on the boundary layer thickness can be achieved in the microscale level. Furthermore, the effect of the controlling parameters on the delay of flow separation, reduced shear stress, drag coefficient and on the Nusselt number profiles is also presented in the results.     

Lubrication theory for micropolar fluids and its application to a journal bearing with finite length

In this paper, the field equation of micropolar fluid with general lubrication theory assumptions is simplified into two systems of coupled ordinary differential equation. The analytical solutions of velocity and microrotation velocity are obtained. Micropolar fluid lubrication Reynolds equation is deduced. By means of numerical method, the characteristics of a finitely long journal bearing under various dynamic parameters, geometrical parameters and micropolar parameters are shown in curve form. These characteristics are pressure distribution, load capacity, coefficient of flow flux and coefficient of friction. Practical value of micropolar effects is shown, so micropolar fluid theory further closes to engineering application.     

Electroosmotic oscillatory flow of micropolar fluid in microchannels: application to dynamics of blood flow in microfluidic devices

The electroosmotic flow of a micropolar fluid in a microchannel bounded by two parallel porous plates undergoing periodic vibration is studied. The equations for conservation of linear and angular momentums and Gauss' s law of charge distribution are solved within the framework of the Debye-H¨uckel approximation. The fluid velocity and microrotation are assumed to depend linearly on the Reynolds number. The study shows that the amplitude of microrotation is highly sensitive to the changes in the magnitude of the suction velocity and the width of the microchannel. An increase in the micropolar parameter gives rise to a decrease in the amplitude of microrotation. Numerical estimates reveal that the microrotation of the suspended microelements in blood also plays an important role in controlling the electro-osmotically actuated flow dynamics in microbio-fluidic devices.     

Experimental investigations of a swirling jet in both stationary and rotating surroundings

The ‘plug’ flow emerging from a long rotating tube into a large stationary reservoir was used in the experimental investigation of swirling jets with Reynolds numbers, Re = 600, 1,000 and 2,000, and swirl numbers, S = ΩR/U, in the range 0–1.1, to cover flow regimes from the non-rotating jet to vortex breakdown. Here Ω is the nozzle rotation rate, R is the radius of the nozzle exit, and U is the mean mass axial velocity. The jet was more turbulent and eddies shed faster at larger Re. However the flow criticality and shear layer morphology remained unchanged with Re. After the introduction of sufficient rotation, co-rotating and counter-winding helical waves replaced vortex rings to become the dominant vortex structure. The winding direction of the vortex lines suggests that Kelvin–Helmholtz and generalized centrifugal instability dominated the shear layer. A quantitative visualization study has been carried out for cases where the reservoir was rotating independently with S _a  = Ω _a R/U = ±0.35, ±0.51 and ±0.70 at Re = 1,000 and 2000, where Ω _a is the rotation rate of the reservoir. The criterion for breakdown was found to be mainly dependent on the absolute swirl number of the jet, S. This critical swirl number was slightly different in stationary and counter-swirl surroundings but obviously smaller when the reservoir co-rotated, i.e. S _c  = 0.88, 0.85 and 0.70, respectively. These results suggest that the flow criticality depends mainly on the velocity distributions of the vortex core, while instabilities resulting from the swirl difference between the jet and its ambient seem to have only a secondary effect.     

Synchronized analysis of an unsteady laminar flow downstream of a circular cylinder centred between two parallel walls using PIV and mass transfer probes

Experiments are carried out in the wake of a cylinder of d _c  = 10 mm diameter placed symmetrically between two parallel walls with a blockage ratio r = 1/3 and a Reynolds number varying between 75 ≤ Re ≤ 277. Particle image velocimetry is exerted to obtain the instantaneous velocity components in the cylinder wake. A snapshot proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is also applied to these PIV results in order to extract the dominant modes through the implementation of an inhomogeneous filtering of these different snapshots, apart from an interpolation to estimate the wall shear rate at the lower wall downstream the cylinder. Mass transfer circular probes are placed at the lower wall downstream this obstacle so as to further determine the time evolution of the wall shear rate, by bringing the inverse method to bear on the convective-diffusion equation. Comparisons between the two synchronized techniques demonstrate that electrochemical method can give more accurate information about the coherent structures present in the flow and about the interaction of the von Kármán vortices with the walls of the tunnel as well. The comparison between the two measurement techniques in the flow regions concerns the spatiotemporal evolutions of the wall shear rate obtained from PIV measurements and the wall shear rate using mass transfer probes. Discrepancy between the PIV measurements and the electrochemical ones near the wall, where the secondary vortices P ₁′ are generated at wall, are caused by a PIV bias and a limitations of the singular mass transfer probes.     

Secondary flow patterns and mixing in laminar pulsating flow through a curved pipe

Mixing by secondary flow is studied by particle image velocimetry (PIV) in a developing laminar pulsating flow through a circular curved pipe. The pipe curvature ratio is η = r ₀/r _c  = 0.09, and the curvature angle is 90°. Different secondary flow patterns are formed during an oscillation period due to competition among the centrifugal, inertial, and viscous forces. These different secondary-flow structures lead to different transverse-mixing schemes in the flow. Here, transverse mixing enhancement is investigated by imposing different pulsating conditions (Dean number, velocity ratio, and frequency parameter); favorable pulsating conditions for mixing are introduced. To obviate light-refraction effects during PIV measurements, a T-shaped structure is installed downstream of the curved pipe. Experiments are carried out for the Reynolds numbers range 420 ≤ Re_st ≤ 1,000 (Dean numbers 126.6 ≤ Dn ≤ 301.5) corresponding to non-oscillating flow, velocity component ratios 1 ≤ (β = U _max,osc/U _m,st) ≤ 4 (the ratio of velocity amplitude of oscillations to the mean velocity without oscillations), and frequency parameters 8.37 < (α = r ₀(ω/ν)^0.5) < 24.5, where α² is the ratio of viscous diffusion time over the pipe radius to the characteristic oscillation time. The variations in cross-sectional average values of absolute axial vorticity (|ζ|) and transverse strain rate (|ε|) are analyzed in order to quantify mixing. The effects of each parameter (Re_st, β, and α) on transverse mixing are discussed by comparing the dimensionless vorticities (|ζ _P |/|ζ _S |) and dimensionless transverse strain rates (|ε _P |/|ε _S |) during a complete oscillation period.     

Molybdenum disulfide and magnesium oxide nanoparticle performance on micropolar Cattaneo-Christov heat flux model

This article intends to illustrate the Darcy flow and melting heat transmission in micropolar liquid.The major advantage of micropolar fluid is the liquid particle rotation through an independent kinematic vector named the microrotation vector.The novel aspects of the Cattaneo-Christov(C-C)heat flux and Joule heating are incorporated in the energy transport expression.Two different nanoparticles,namely,MoS2 and MgO,are suspended into the base-fluid.The governing partial differential equations(PDEs)of the prevailing problem are slackening into ordinary differential expressions(ODEs)via similarity transformations.The resulting mathematical phenomenon is illustrated by the implication of fourth-fifth order Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg(RKF)scheme.The fluid velocity and temperature distributions are deliberated by using graphical phenomena for multiple values of physical constraints.The results are displayed for both molybdenum disulphide and magnesium oxide nanoparticles.A comparative benchmark in the limiting approach is reported for the validation of the present technique.It is revealed that the incrementing material constraint results in a higher fluid velocity for both molybdenum disulphide and magnesium oxide nanoparticle situations.