Computational study of the axial instability of rimming flow using Arnoldi method

Axial instability of rimming flow has been investigated by solving a linear generalized eigenvalue problem that governs the evolution of perturbations of two‐dimensional base flow. Using the Galerkin finite element method, full Navier–Stokes equations were solved to calculate base flow and this base flow was perturbed with three‐dimensional disturbances. The generalized eigenproblem formulated from these equations was solved by the implicitly restarted Arnoldi method using shift‐invert technique. This study presents instability curves to identify the critical wavelength of the neutral mode and the critical β, which measures the importance of gravity relative to viscosity. The axial instability of rimming flow is examined and three‐dimensional flow was reconstructed by using eigenvector and growth rate at a critical wave number. The critical β value in the axial instability analysis was observed to be comparable to the onset β value of the transition between the bump and the homogeneous film state in 2‐D base flow calculations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Streakline visualization of the structures in the near wake of a circular cylinder in sinusoidally oscillating flow

A numerical investigation of three-dimensional sinusoidally oscillating flow around a circular cylinder was conducted to examine mushroom-type structures in the near wake that are manifestations of the Honji instability. The focus of this paper is to examine the flow structure through the analysis of the streaklines in the flow. Through the use of streakline visualizations and their correlation with vorticity in the flow field, the onset and development of the mushroom-type structures is followed. The parameter value range is 0.1<KC<2.0 and β=1035, 6815, and 9956. The streakline patterns in several axial planes are examined and used to describe the various mechanisms that sustain the mushroom-type structure during the oscillatory cycle.     

Effect of inertia on thermoelastic flow instability

Thermal effects induced by viscous heating cause thermoelastic flow instabilities in curvilinear shear flows of viscoelastic polymer solutions. These instabilities could be tracked experimentally by changing the fluid temperature T₀ to span the parameter space. In this work, the influence of T₀ on the stability boundary of the Taylor–Couette flow of an Oldroyd-B fluid is studied. The upper bound of the stability boundary in the Weissenberg number (We)–Nahme number (Na) space is given by the critical conditions corresponding to the extension of the time-dependent isothermal eigensolution. Initially, as T₀ is increased, the critical Weissenberg number, We_c, associated with this upper branch increases. Increasing T₀ beyond a certain value T^* causes the thermoelastic mode of instability to manifest. This occurs in the limit as We/Pe → 0, where Pe denotes the Péclet number. In this limit, the fluid relaxation time is much smaller than the time scale of thermal diffusion. T₀ = T^* represents a turning point in the We_c–Na_c curve. Consequently, the stability boundary is multi-valued for a wide range of Na values. Since the relaxation time and viscosity of the fluid decrease with increasing T₀, the elasticity number, defined as the ratio of the fluid relaxation time to the time scale of viscous diffusion, also decreases. Hence, O(10) values of the Reynolds number could be realized at the onset of instability if T₀ is sufficiently large. This sets limits for the temperature range that can be used in experiments if inertial effects are to be minimized.     

On the non-linear instability of fiber suspensions in a Poiseuille flow

The non-linear instability characteristics of fiber suspensions in a plane Poiseuille flow are investigated. The evolution equation of the perturbation amplitude analogous to Landau equation is formulated and solved numerically for different fiber parameters. It is found that the equilibrium amplitude decreases with the increase of the fiber aspect ratio and volume fraction, i.e. the addition of the fibers reduces the amplitude of the perturbation, and leads to the reduction of the flow instability. This phenomenon becomes significant for large volume concentration and aspect ratio. The mechanism of the reduction of the flow instability is also analyzed by taking into account of the modification of the mean flow and the energy transfer from the mean flow to the perturbation flow.     

Numerical simulation of streamwise fluidelastic instability of tube bundles subjected to two-phase cross flow

This work aims to develop and validate a numerical model to simulate the flow-structure interaction in tube bundles subjected to two-phase flow. The model utilizes a mixture multiphase module in which a drift flux formulation is used to account for the slip between the phases. Two methods of numerical flow-structure interaction are used to predict the onset of fluidelastic instability (FEI) in the streamwise direction for a two-phase air–water flow mixture in parallel triangular tube bundles. These models are the hybrid analytical-flow field model and the direct numerical flow/structure coupling model. This work investigates the effects of void fractions in the range of 20% to 80% and several pitch-to-diameter ratios (P/D) in the range of 1.3 to 1.7. The results of the fluidelastic forces and the stability threshold are validated against the experimental data available in the literature and show an excellent agreement. The streamwise FEI threshold shows a significant dependency on the pitch-to-diameter ratio while the void fraction exhibits a lesser effect. Generally, the stability threshold increases as the pitch-to-diameter ratio increases. The model that was developed paves the way for devising of more reliable prediction tools for FEI in steam generators.     

Effect of elastic wall motion on oscillatory flow of micropolar fluid in an annular tube

Summary Oscillatory flow of a micropolar fluid in an annular tube is investigated. The outer wall of the tube is taken to be elastic and the variation in the diameter of the elastic wall due to pulsatile nature of pressure gradient is assumed to be small. The wall motion is governed by a tube law. The nonlinear equations governing the fluid flow and the tube law are solved using perturbation analysis. The steady-streaming phenomenon due to the interaction of convected inertia with viscous effects is studied. The analysis, is carried out for zero mean flow rate. It presents the effects of the elastic nature of the wall combined with micropolar fluid parameters on the mean pressure gradient and wall shear stress for different catheter sizes and frequency parameters. It is found that the effect of micropolarity is of considerable importance for small steady-streaming Reynolds number. Also, it is observed that the relationship between mean pressure gradient and the flow rate depends on the amplitude of the diameter variation, flow rate waveforms and the phase difference between them.     

Inertial and coriolis effects on oscillatory flow in a horizontal dendrite layer

Flow instability due to oscillatory modes of disturbances in a horizontal dendrite layer during alloy solidification is investigated under an external constraint of rotation. The flow in the dendrite layer, which is modeled as flow in a porous layer and with the inertial effects included, is assumed to rotate about the vertical axis at a constant angular velocity. The investigation is an extension of the work in Riahi (On stationary and oscillatory modes of flow instablity in a rotating porous layer during alloy solidification. J. Porous Media, 6, 177–187, 2003), which was for the case in the absence of the inertial effects. Results of the stability analyses indicate, in particular, that the Coriolis effect can enhance the physical domain for the oscillatory flow, while the inertial effect tends to reduce such domain. Sufficiently strong inertial effect can eliminate presence of the oscillatory mode only for the rotation rate beyond some value. The effect of interaction between the local volume fraction of solid and the flow associated with the Coriolis term was found to be stabilizing.     

Interfacial instability in turbulent flow over a liquid film in a channel

We revisit the stability of a deformable interface that separates a fully-developed turbulent gas flow from a thin layer of laminar liquid. Although this problem has received considerable attention previously, a model that requires no fitting parameters and that uses a base-state profile that has been validated against experiments is, as yet, unavailable. Furthermore, the significance of wave-induced perturbations in turbulent stresses remains unclear. To address these outstanding issues, we investigate this problem and introduce a turbulent base-state velocity that requires specification of a flow rate or a pressure drop only; no adjustable parameters are necessary. This base state is validated extensively against available experimental data as well as the results of direct numerical simulations. In addition, the effect of perturbations in the turbulent stress distributions is investigated, and demonstrated to be small for cases wherein the liquid layer is thin. The detailed modelling of the liquid layer also elicits two unstable modes, ‘interfacial’ and ‘internal’, with the former being the more dominant of the two. We show that it is possible for interfacial roughness to reduce the growth rate of the interfacial mode in relation to that of the internal one, promoting the latter, to the status of most dangerous mode. Additionally, we introduce an approximate measure to distinguish between ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ waves, the latter being the case for ‘critical-layer’-induced instabilities; we demonstrate that for the parameter ranges studied, the large majority of the waves are ‘slow’. Finally, comparisons of our linear stability predictions are made with experimental data in terms of critical parameters for onset of wave-formation, wave speeds and wavelengths; these yield agreement within the bounds of experimental error.     

Linear stability analysis of coupled parallel flexible plates in an axial flow

We study here the linear stability of N identical flexible plates with clamped–free boundary conditions forced by a uniform parallel flow. Flow viscosity and elastic damping are neglected, and the flow around the plates is assumed potential. The shedding of vorticity from the plates’ trailing edges is accounted for by introducing a force-free wake behind each plate. A Galerkin method is used to compute the eigenmodes of the system. We are interested in the effects of the number of plates and their relative distance on the stability property of the state of rest, as well as in the nature and structure of the coupled states. Detailed results are presented for the cases N=2, N=3 and N1.     

Experimental and numerical investigations on the pure material instability of an Oldroyd's 3-constant model

Received March 25, 2001 / Published online November 15, 2001     

Hydromagnetic capillary instability of a liquid jet with an axial flow

The hydromagnetic capillary instability of a jet of inviscid, impressible fluid of infinite electrical conductivity and subjected to a uniform axial magnetic field is studied, taking into account an axial flow in the jet. The results show that while the axial flow promotes instability due to capillary effects and the axial-flow effects can be completely suppressed by a magnetic field of sufficient strength.     

Numerical simulation of the flow field in the vicinity of an axial flow fan

The main purpose of the current investigation is the development and evaluation of a numerical model used to simulate the effect of an axial flow fan on the velocity field in the vicinity of the fan blades. The axial flow fan is modeled as an actuator disc, where the actuator disc forces are calculated using blade element theory. The calculated disc forces are expressed as sources/sinks of momentum in the Navier–Stokes equations solved by a commercially available computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code, Flo⁺⁺. The model is used to determine the fan performance characteristics of an axial flow fan as well as the velocity fields directly up‐ and downstream of the fan blades. The results are compared with experimental data. In general, good agreement is obtained between the numerical results and experimental data, although the fan power consumption, as well as radial velocity downstream of the fan blades, is underpredicted by the fan model. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Surfactant effects on the Rayleigh instability in capillary tubes – non-ideal systems

In a previous work, the instability of a liquid film deposited on the inner walls of a capillary under the presence of insoluble surfactant was analyzed; for that purpose the surface tension was related to the interfacial concentration of surfactant by a linear equation. In general, that assumption is valid when just trace amounts of surfactant are present. The present work extends previous analysis by considering a non-linear surface equation of state derived from the Frumkin adsorption isotherm. This equation of state account not only for the existing quantities of surfactant but also for non-ideal interactions between adsorbed molecules. Except for the equation of state, both the model and the numerical technique employed do not differ from those used in the preceding work. The new predictions here presented show that a linear surface equation of state gives reasonable results for strong surfactants. However, the action of weaker surfactants strongly depends on other parameters: the initial concentration and the type and strength of interaction between adsorbed molecules. Thus, the use of a linear equation of state in these circumstances might give erroneous results.     

Remarks on the stability of viscometric flow

We study the stability of viscometric flow using the type of short memory introduced by Akbay, Becker, Krozer and Sponagel. The instability found by these researchers is recognized as a change of type leading to non-evolutionary character of the governing equations. We also address the question of justification for the short memory assumption and find that it cannot be justified for some of the more popular rheological models.     

Temporal and spatial instability of an inviscid compound jet

This paper examines the linear hydrodynamic stability of an inviscid compound jet. We perform the temporal and the spatial analyses in a unified framework in terms of transforms. The two analyses agree in the limit of large jet velocity. The dispersion equation is explicit in the growth rate, affording an analytical solution. In the temporal analysis, there are two growing modes, stretching and squeezing. Thin film asymptotic expressions provide insight into the instability mechanism. The spatial analysis shows that the compound jet is absolutely unstable for small jet velocities and admits a convectively growing instability for larger velocities. We study the effect of the system parameters on the temporal growth rate and that of the jet velocity on the spatial growth rate. Predictions of both the temporal and the spatial theories compare well with experiment.Dedicated to the memory of Professor Tasos C. Papanastasiou