Numerical simulation of laminar flow past a circular cylinder

The present paper focuses on the analysis of two- and three-dimensional flow past a circular cylinder in different laminar flow regimes. In this simulation, an implicit pressure-based finite volume method is used for time-accurate computation of incompressible flow using second order accurate convective flux discretisation schemes. The computation results are validated against measurement data for mean surface pressure, skin friction coefficients, the size and strength of the recirculating wake for the steady flow regime and also for the Strouhal frequency of vortex shedding and the mean and RMS amplitude of the fluctuating aerodynamic coefficients for the unsteady periodic flow regime. The complex three dimensional flow structure of the cylinder wake is also reasonably captured by the present prediction procedure.     

The effect of conjugate heat transfer on MHD mixed convection about a vertical slender hollow cylinder

The problem of steady laminar magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) mixed convection heat transfer about a vertical slender hollow cylinder is studied numerically, under the effect of wall conduction. A uniform magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the cylinder. The non-similar solutions using the Keller box method are obtained. The wall conduction parameter, the magnetic parameter and the Richardson number are the main parameters. For various values of these parameters the local skin friction and local heat transfer parameters are determined. The validity of the methodology is checked by comparing the results with those available in the open literature and a fairly good agreement is observed. Finally, it is determined that the local skin friction and the local heat transfer coefficients increase with an increase the magnetic parameter Mn and buoyancy parameter Ri and decrease with conjugate heat transfer parameter p.     

Dual solutions in mixed convection boundary layer flow of micropolar fluids

The steady mixed convection boundary layer flow over a vertical surface immersed in an incompressible micropolar fluid is considered in this paper. Employing suitable similarity transformations, the governing partial differential equations are transformed into ordinary differential equations, and the transformed equations are solved numerically by the Keller-box method. Numerical results are obtained for the skin friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number as well as the velocity, angular velocity and temperature profiles. Both cases of assisting and opposing buoyant flows are considered. It is found that dual solutions exist for the assisting flow, besides that usually reported in the literature for the opposing flow. Moreover, in contrast to the classical boundary layer theory, the separation point of the boundary layer is found to be distinct from the point of vanishing skin friction.     

Numerical simulation of flow of viscoelastic fluids

The paper deals with the numerical calculation of highly viscous, non-newtonian fluid flows in apparatus of mechanical engineering. We use a differential constitutive equation to approximate the real behaviour of technical fluids like polymer melts. By means of calculated flow examples in two and three dimensional geometries we demonstrate the influence of the non-newtonian behaviour. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Free convection flow of an elastico-viscous liquid through a vertical circular cylinder

The problem of free convection flow of an elastico-viscous liquid through a vertical circular cylinder at constant temperature including the effects of frictional heating and distributed heat sources or sinks has been considered. The equations of motion and energy have been solved by an iteration technique. The effects of the elasticity of the liquid, buoyancy forces and heat sources or sinks on the velocity and temperature fields, skin-friction and Nusselt number have been discussed.     

Exact solutions for the unsteady axial flow of Non-Newtonian fluids through a circular cylinder

The velocity field and the shear stress corresponding to the motion of a generalized Oldroyd-B fluid due to an infinite circular cylinder subject to a longitudinal time-dependent shear stress are established by means of the Laplace and finite Hankel transforms. The exact solutions, written under series form, can be easily specialized to give the similar solutions for generalized Maxwell and generalized second grade fluids as well as for ordinary Oldroyd-B, Maxwell, second grade and Newtonian fluids performing the same motion. Finally, some characteristics of the motion as well as the influence of the material parameters on the behavior of the fluid are shown by graphical illustrations.     

A lattice Boltzmann analysis of the conjugate natural convection in a square enclosure with a circular cylinder

In this paper, an improved lattice Boltzmann model that incorporates the effect of heat capacity is adopted to simulate the conjugate natural convection in a square enclosure with a circular cylinder, and the square cavity considered is bounded by four finite thickness and conductive walls. Influences of Rayleigh number, wall thermophysical properties, and wall thickness on streamlines, isotherms and Nusselt number are analyzed. It is found that the heat transfer rate obtained for different wall thicknesses is usually smaller than that for the zero wall thickness, while this difference is not apparent for a larger thermal conductivity ration. Additionally, the study also shown that the increase of the outer wall thickness tends to decrease the heat transfer rate. The effects of the geometric parameter, including aspect ratio and vertical cylinder location, on heat transfer are also studied.     

Natural convection flow from a horizontal circular cylinder with uniform heat flux in presence of heat generation

Natural convection boundary layer laminar flow from a horizontal circular cylinder with uniform heat flux in presence of heat generation has been investigated. The governing boundary layer equations are transformed into a non-dimensional form and the resulting non-linear systems of partial differential equations, which are solved numerically by two distinct methods namely: (i) implicit finite difference method together with the Keller-box scheme and (ii) perturbation solution technique. The results of the surface shear stress in terms of local skin-friction and the rate of heat transfer in terms of local Nusselt number, velocity distribution, velocity vectors, temperature distribution as well as streamlines, isotherms and isolines of pressure are shown by graphically for a selection of parameter set consisting of heat generation parameter.     

Numerical study of mixed convection flow of a micropolar fluid towards permeable vertical plate with convective boundary condition

In this article, the mixed convective flow of a micropolar fluid along a permeable vertical plate under the convective boundary condition is analyzed. The scaling group of transformations is applied to get the similarity representation of the system of partial differential equations of the problem and then the resulting equations are solved by using Spectral Quasi-Linearisation Method. This study reveals that the dual solutions exists for certain values of mixed convection parameter. The outcomes are analyzed with dual solutions in detail. Effects of micropolar parameter, Biot number and suction/injection parameters on different flow profiles are discussed and depicted graphically.     

An electromagnetic free convection flow of a micropolar fluid with relaxation time

In the present investigation, we study the influence of a transverse magnetic field on the one-dimensional motion of an electrically conducting micropolar fluid through a porous medium. Laplace transform techniques are used to derive the solution in the Laplace transform domain. The inversion process is carried out using a numerical method based on Fourier series expansions. Numerical computations for the temperature, the microrotation and the velocity distributions as well as for the induced magnetic and electric fields are carried out and represented graphically.     

Group theoretic method for unsteady free convection flow of a micropolar fluid along a vertical plate in a thermally stratified medium

The group theoretic approach is applied for solving the problem of unsteady natural convection flow of micropolar fluid along a vertical flat plate in a thermally stratified medium. The application of two-parameter transformation group reduces the number of independent variables in the governing system consisting of partial differential equations and a set of auxiliary conditions from three to only one independent variable, and consequently the system of governing partial differential equations with boundary conditions reduces to a system of ordinary differential equations with appropriate boundary conditions. Numerical solution of the velocity, microrotation and heat transfer have been obtained. The possible forms of the ambient temperature variation with position and time are derived.     

Influence of variable heat flux on natural convection along a corrugated wall in porous media

In this work the coupled non-linear partial differential equations, governing the free convection from a wavy vertical wall under a power law heat flux condition, are solved numerically. For both Darcy and Forchheimer extended non-Darcy models, a wavy to flat surface transformation is applied and the governing equations are reduced to boundary layer equations. A finite difference scheme based on the Keller Box approach has been used in conjunction with a block tri-diagonal solver for obtaining the solution. Detailed simulations are carried out to investigate the effect of varying parameters such as power law heat flux exponent m, wavelength–amplitude ratio a and the transformed Grashof number Gr′. Both surface undulations and inertial forces increase the temperature of the vertical surface while increasing m reduces it. The wavy pattern observed in surface temperature plots, become more prominent with increasing m or a but reduces as Gr′ increases.     

An accurate solution procedure for fluid flow with natural convection

We consider the Boussinesq model of buoyancy driven fluid flows. This nonlinear system is solved numerically using a two level finite element method. On the first level, a nonlinear system is solved on a very coarse mesh. Thereafter, a linear system is solved on a fine mesh.

In a standard approach, one might obtain the numerical solution from a discretization of the original, nonlinear system using the same fine mesh.

Both solutions are of equal order of accuracy if the mesh widths are properly balanced. Therefore the two level method is very efficient.     

Effect of pressure work on free convection flow along a vertical circular cone with suction and variable surface temperature

Free convection laminar flow from a vertical circular cone maintained a variable surface temperature with suction and pressure work effects has been investigated. The governing boundary layer equations are transformed into a non-dimensional form and the resulting nonlinear system of partial differential equations are reduced to local non-similarity equations. The governing non-similarity equations are then solved numerically by implicit finite difference method together with Keller box scheme. Numerical results are presented in terms of velocity and temperature profiles of the fluid as well as the local skin-friction coefficients and the local heat transfer rate for different values of Prandtl number Pr, suction parameter ξ, temperature gradient parameter n and the pressure work parameter ∈. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Numerical simulation of flow of a micropolar fluid between a porous disk and a non-porous disk

Two dimensional steady, laminar and incompressible motion of a micropolar fluid between an impermeable disk and a permeable disk is considered to investigate the influence of the Reynolds number and the micropolar structure on the flow characteristics. The main flow stream is superimposed by constant injection velocity at the porous disk. An extension of Von Karman’s similarity transformations is applied to reduce governing partial differential equations (PDEs) to a set of non-linear 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. The numerical results reflect the expected physical behavior of the flow phenomenon under consideration. The study indicates that the magnitude of shear stress increases strictly and indefinitely at the impermeable disk while it decreases steadily at the permeable disk, by increasing the injection velocity. Moreover, the micropolar fluids reduce the skin friction as compared to the Newtonian fluids. The magnitude of microrotation increases with increasing the magnitude of R and the micropolar parameters. The present results are in excellent comparison with the available literature results.     

A general theoretical model for the magnetohydrodynamic flow of micropolar magnetic fluids. Application to Stokes flow

Many practical applications, which have an inherent interest of physical and mathematical nature, involve the hydrodynamic flow in the presence of a magnetic field. Magnetic fluids comprise a novel class of engineering materials, where the coexistence of liquid and magnetic properties provides us with the opportunity to solve problems with high mathematical and technical complexity. Here, our purpose is to examine the micropolar magnetohydrodynamic flow of magnetic fluids by considering a colloidal suspension of ferromagnetic material (usually non‐conductive) in a carrier magnetic liquid, which is in general electrically conductive. In this case, the ferromagnetic particles behave as rigid magnetic dipoles. Thus, the application of an external magnetic field, apart from the creation of an induced magnetic field of minor significance, will prevent the rotation of each particle, increasing the effective viscosity of the fluid and will cause the appearance of an additional magnetic pressure. Despite the fact that the general consideration consists of rigid particles of arbitrary shape, the assumption of spherical geometry is a very good approximation as a consequence of their small size. Our goal is to develop a general three‐dimensional theoretical model that conforms to physical reality and at the same time permits the analytical investigation of the partial differential equations, which govern the micropolar hydrodynamic flow in such magnetic liquids. Furthermore, in the aim of establishing the consistency of our proposed model with the principles of both ferrohydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics, we take into account both magnetization and electrical conductivity of the fluid, respectively. Under this consideration, we perform an analytical treatment of these equations in order to obtain the three‐dimensional effective viscosity and total pressure in terms of the velocity field, the total (applied and induced) magnetic field and the hydrodynamic and magnetic properties of the fluid, independently of the geometry of the flow. Moreover, we demonstrate the usefulness of our analytical approach by assuming a degenerate case of the aforementioned method, which is based on the reduction of the partial differential equations to a simpler shape that is similar to Stokes flow for the creeping motion of magnetic fluids. In view of this aim, we use the potential representation theory to construct a new complete and unique differential representation of magnetic Stokes flow, valid for non‐axisymmetric geometries, which provides the velocity and total pressure fields in terms of easy‐to‐find potentials, via an analytical fashion. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mixed convection flow of a micropolar fluid from an unsteady stretching surface with viscous dissipation

An analysis is performed to study the unsteady mixed convection flow of a viscous incompressible micropolar fluid adjacent to a heated vertical surface in the presence of viscous dissipation when the buoyancy force assists or opposes the flow. The flow of the fluid and subsequent heat transfer from the stretching surface is investigated with the aid of appropriate transformation variables. The effect of the governing parameters on the flow and heat transfer characteristics as well as the local skin friction coefficient, wall couple stress and the heat transfer rate are thoroughly examined.     

Two-dimensional numerical simulation of a wave with a current past a circular cylinder. Part 1: Inline flow

This study considered a 2D numerical simulation with LES modeling of a sinusoidal oscillatory flow inline with an imposed uniform flow using primitive variables. The study is performed by a customized code particularly built for this simulation. This code allows an easy implementation to a customized combination of different boundary conditions and discretization schemes. The code is verified against well-recognized studies of a similar type to validate the calculated results. It is found that the drag and inertia coefficients of the wavy flow are reduced with the increased strength of the imposed uniform flow. A strong chaotic behavior was observed in the flow field structures. This behavior has a significant unpredictable influence on the resulting inline and transverse forces through the flow field pattern within the vicinity of the cylinder surface. This influence sometimes causes the exerted forces to increase when compared to the purely wavy flow. Based on this study, it is highly recommended not to uncouple wavy flows from uniform flows to simultaneously capture the combined interactions of such flow scenarios.