A numerical study of flow through wavy-walled channels

A numerical procedure is developed for the analysis of flow in a channel whose walls describe a travelling wave motion. Following a perturbation method, the primitive variables are expanded in a series with the wall amplitude as the perturbation parameter. The boundary conditions are applied at the mean surface of the channel and the first-order perturbation quantities are calculated using the pseudospectral collocation method. Although limited by the linear analysis, the present approach is not restricted by the Reynolds number of the flow and the wave number and frequency of the wavy-walled channel. Using the computed wall shear stresses, the positions of flow separation and reattachment are determined. The variations in velocity and pressure with frequency of excitation are also presented. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.