Axisymmetric Stokes drag on hollow cylinders: Computation and comparison with experiment

The Beads-on-a-Shell (BoS) numerical technique for determining the Stokes drag on an object translating in an infinite fluid is applied to the class of finite rigid hollow cylinders with aspect ratio 0 less than or equal to L/D less than or equal to 20 and inner-to-outer radius ratios 0 less than or equal to R-i/R less than or equal to 1.0. Agreement with the Stokes drag measurements on hollow cylinders in the range L/D < 4 and 0.0 less than or equal to R-i/R less than or equal to 0.95 reported by (Lasso and Weidman, 1986) is very good except at the extreme upper limits of L/D and R/R. The discrepancy is attributed to a breakdown of the nd hoc correction procedure adopted to account for wall interference and inertial effects on the measurements when the cylinders are long and thin. The BoS scheme was first tested by computing the Stokes drag and comparing with published analytical results for the axial translation of a solid cylinder, a cylindrical shell, and a spherical shell with opposing polar taps removed. (C) Elsevier, Paris.