A novel non-primitive Boundary Integral Equation Method for three-dimensional and axisymmetric Stokes flows

A new Boundary Integral Equation (BIE) formulation for Stokes flow is presented for three-dimensional and axisymmetrical problems using non-primitive variables, assuming velocity field is prescribed on the boundary. The formulation involves the vector potential, instead of the classical stream function, and all three components of the vorticity are implied. Furthermore, following the Helmholtz decomposition, a scalar potential is added to represent the solenoidal velocity field. Firstly, the BIEs for three-dimensional flows are formulated for the vector potential and the vorticity by employing the fundamental solutions in free space of vector Laplace and biharmonic equations. The equations for axisymmetric flows are then derived from the three-dimensional formulation in a second step. The outcome is a domain integral free BIE formulation for both three-dimensional and axisymmetric Stokes flows with prescribed velocity boundary condition. Numerical results are included to validate and show the efficiency of the proposed axisymmetric formulation.