The method of fundamental solutions for Stokes flow in a rectangular cavity with cylinders

Numerical solutions based on the method of fundamental solutions are discussed for Stokes flow inside a rectangular cavity in the presence of circular cylinders. The Stokeslets are used as the fundamental solutions to obtain the solution for the flow field by a linear combination of fundamental solutions. Flow results on the cellular structure of flow field resulting from the dynamics of cylinders and the horizontal walls of the cavity are reported for (i) one rotating cylinder in a rectangular cavity with two parallel horizontal sides moving in the same directions as well as in the opposite directions, (ii) two rotating cylinders kept apart in a rectangular cavity with two parallel horizontal sides moving in the same directions as well as in the opposite directions. The effect of aspect ratio of the rectangular cavity, direction of movement of the two parallel horizontal sides of the cavity and the diameter of the rotating cylinder on the flow structure are studied. The flow results obtained for the single cylinder case are in accordance with the results available in the literature. From the computational point of view, the present numerical procedure based on the method of fundamental solutions is efficient and simple to implement as compared to the mesh-dependent schemes, which needs complex mesh generation procedure for the multiply connected geometrical domains considered in this article. (c) 2005 Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.