| Abstract: | It is generally assumed in curved pipe flow analyses that the curvature ratio, δ, of the pipe is very small, in which case the flow depends on a single parameter, the Dean number. This is not the case if δ is not very small. To determine the importance of this effect we have numerically solved the full Navier-Stokes equations, in primitive variable form, for arbitrary values of δ. A factored ADI finite-difference scheme has been used, employing Chorin's artificial compressibility technique. The results show that the central-difference calculation on a staggered grid is stable, without adding artificial damping terms, due to coupling between pressure and velocity. A spatially variable time step is used with a fixed Courant number. |
