STATIONARY SOLUTIONS OF INCOMPRESSIBLE VISCOUS FLOW IN A WALL-DRIVEN SEMI-CIRCULAR CAVITY

Abstract

Stationary numerical solutions of incompressible viscous flow inside a wall-driven semicircular cavity are presented. After a conformal mapping of the geometry, using a body-fitted mesh, the Navier-Stokes equations are solved numerically. The stationary solutions of the flow in a wall-driven semi-circular cavity are computed up to Re = 24000. The present results are in good agreement with the published results found in the literature. Our results show that as the Reynolds number increases, the sizes of the secondary and tertiary vortices increase, whereas the size of the primary vortex decreases. At large Reynolds numbers, the vorticity at the primary vortex centre increases almost linearly stating that Batchelor's mean-square law is not valid for wall-driven semi-circular cavity flow. Detailed results are presented and also tabulated for future references and benchmark purposes.