FINITE VOLUME ANALYSIS OF SPIRAL MOTION IN A RECTANGULAR LID-DRIVEN CAVITY

Abstract

With the purpose of providing physical insight into the developing spanwise flow motion and identifying the presence of Taylor–Görtler- like vortices, we conducted a flow simulation in a rectangular cavity defined by a square cross-section and a spanwise aspect ratio of 3:1. The governing equations were solved for the transient processes by using a finite volume method in conjunction with segregated solution procedures. In the present work, attention is placed on the spiralling corner vortices near the two end walls and the longitudinal meandering Taylor–Görtler-like vortices. The investigated Reynolds number is taken to be 1500. As a vehicle for the present flow simulation, validation against analytic data was carried out first for a configuration similar to the problem of interest. This study demonstrates the feasibility of the employed computer code.