Numerical simulation of the unsteady two-dimensional flow in a time-dependent doubly-connected domain.

Abstract

Two-dimensional flow in a viscous incompressible fluid, generated by a circular cylinder executing large-amplitude rectilinear oscillations in a plane perpendicular to its axis and parallel to one of the sides of a surrounding rectangular box filled with incompressible fluid is studied numerically. The circular cylinder moves back and forth through its own wake, resulting in an extremely complex flow field. For ease of implementing boundary conditions, a numerically generated body-fitted coordinate system is used. At each time step, the physical domain is doubly-connected, and a cut is introduced in order to map it into a rectangular computational domain. A body-fitted grid is generated by solving a pair of Laplace equations with a simple grid spacing control method which preserves the essential one-to-one property of the mapping. A finite difference/pseudo-spectral technique is used in this work to solve the Navier-Stokes equations in velocity-vorticity formulation. The time integration of the vorticity transport equation is handled by a fully explicit three-level Adams-Bashforth method. The two Poisson equations for the velocity components are 11-banded and block-diagonal in form, and are solved by a preconditioned biconjugate gradient routine. An integral constraint on the vorticity field is used to determine the boundary vorticity that simultaneously satisfies the no-slip and no-penetration conditions. The surface vorticity is uniquely determined by a general solution procedure developed in this study which is valid for flows over multiple solid bodies. With this approach, the physical process of vorticity generation on the solid boundary is properly simulated and the principle of vorticity conservation is satisfied. Results for various test cases and the complex vortex shedding phenomena generated by an oscillating circular cylinder are presented and discussed.