No abstract

In this study the flow through and around a parallel-walled channel with an obstruction (flat plate) placed at the channel inlet is investigated. Depending on the position of the obstruction, the flow inside the channel is in a direction opposite to that outside, stagnant or in the same direction as outside but with reduced magnitude. Flow visualization in water is used to examine the fluid motion, although some wind tunnel measurements have been made and are also reported. The parameters that have been varied are the gap between the obstruction and the entry to the channel, the length of the channel and the Reynolds number. The maximum value of the reverse flow velocity is found to be about 20% of that of the flow outside. The maximum forward velocity inside the channel (when it occurs) is only about 65% of the outside velocity even for very large gaps between the obstruction and the channel entrance. A tentative explanation is offered for the observed features.

The linear temporal stability characteristics of converging-diverging, symmetric wavy walled channel flows are numerically investigated in this paper. The basic flow in the problem is a superposition of plane channel flow and periodic flow components arising due to the small amplitude sinusoidal waviness of the channel walls. The disturbance equations are derived within the frame work of Floquet theory and solved using the spectral collocation method. Two-dimensional stability calculations indicate the presence of fast growing unstable modes that arise due to the waviness of the walls. Neutral stability calculations are performed in the disturbance wavenumber-Reynolds number (a s-R) plane, for the wavy channel with wavenumber k 1 =0.2 and the wall amplitude to semi-channel height ratio, E,,., up to 0.1. It is also shown that the two-dimensional wavy channel flows can be modulated by a suitable frequency of wall excitation cog , thereby stabilizing the flow.

No abstract

A numerical procedure is developed for the analysis of flow in a channel whose walls describe a travelling wave motion. Following a perturbation method, the primitive variables are expanded in a series with the wall amplitude as the perturbation parameter. The boundary conditions are applied at the mean surface of the channel and the first-order perturbation quantities are calculated using the pseudospectral collocation method. Although limited by the linear analysis, the present approach is not restricted by the Reynolds number of the flow and the wave number and frequency of the wavy-walled channel. Using the computed wall shear stresses, the positions of flow separation and reattachment are determined. The variations in velocity and pressure with frequency of excitation are also presented.