Numerical simulation of the flow around and through a hygroscopic porous circular cylinder

The flow around and through a hygroscopic porous circular cylinder was studied numerically in this paper. The cylinder is placed horizontally and exposed to a uniform flow of air. The effects of the important parameters, the hygroscopicity, the porosity, the Reynolds and Darcy numbers, on the flow are investigated in detail. A single-domain model is introduced to describe the flow around and through a porous circular cylinder with consideration of the adsorption effects. The flow is simulated by solving time-dependent Navier Stokes equations in the homogenous fluid region and Darcy Brinkman Forchheimer extended model in the inner region. High order compact finite difference schemes are constructed for better simulation of this problem. Detailed numerical simulation results indicate that the effects of adsorption may have a significant effect on the flow behind the porous cylinder and suppress the occurrence of recirculating wake. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.