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Reduced-order modelling of thick inertial flows around rotating cylinders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2020

Alexander W. Wray*
Affiliation:
Mathematics and Statistics, University of Strathclyde, Livingstone Tower, 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XH, UK
Radu Cimpeanu
Affiliation:
Mathematics Institute, Zeeman Building, University of Warwick, CoventryCV4 7AL, UK Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, OxfordOX2 6GG, UK Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK
*
Email address for correspondence: alexander.wray@strath.ac.uk

Abstract

A new model for the behaviour of a thick, two-dimensional layer of fluid on the surface of a rotating cylinder is presented, incorporating the effects of inertia, rotation, viscosity, gravity and capillarity. Comparisons against direct numerical simulations (DNS) show good accuracy for fluid layers of thickness of the same order as the cylinder radius, even for Reynolds numbers up to $Re\sim 10$. A rich and complex parameter space is revealed, and is elucidated via a variety of analytical and numerical techniques. At moderate rotation rates and fluid masses, the system exhibits either periodic behaviour or converges to a steady state, with the latter generally being favoured by greater masses and lower rotation rates. These behaviours, and the bifurcation structure of the transitions between them, are examined using a combination of both the low-order model and DNS. Specific attention is dedicated to newly accessible regions of parameter space, including the multiple steady state solutions observed for the same parameter values by Lopes et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 835, 2018, pp. 540–574), where the corresponding triple limit point bifurcation structure is recovered by the new low-order model. We also inspect states in which the interface becomes multivalued – and thus outside the reach of the reduced-order model – via DNS. This leads to highly nonlinear multivalued periodic structures appearing at moderate thicknesses and relatively large rotation rates. Even much thicker films may eventually reach steady states (following complex early evolution), provided these are maintained by a combination of forces sufficiently large to counteract gravity.

Information

Type
JFM Papers
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Figure 1. Geometry of the problem considered in the present work. The disk has unit radius, with the interface lying at $r=h$. Gravity acts vertically downwards. The disk rotates with angular velocity $c_{V}$ in the anti-clockwise direction.

Figure 1

Figure 2. The relationship between the full long-wave model (equations (2.7), (3.11), § 3.2), the thin-film weighted residual model (equations (3.13), (3.14), § 3.2.1), the long-wave gradient expansion model (equation (3.18), § 3.2.2) and the thin-film gradient expansion model as derived by Kelmanson (2009) (equation (3.19), § 3.2.3).

Figure 2

Table 1. Dimensional variables corresponding to the two regimes examined here. Regime 2 is more easily realised physically but has too high a capillary number to observe some of the more unusual phenomena found in Regime 1.

Figure 3

Figure 3. Growth rates as a function of rotation speed $c_{V}$ and undisturbed interfacial radius $\bar{h}$ for $n=2$: (a) Regime 1; (b) Regime 2 from table 1.

Figure 4

Figure 4. Growth rates corresponding to Regime 1 in table 1. (a,b) Effect of varying $c_{V}$ for $\bar{h}=1.5$; (a) $n=2$, (b) $n=4$. (c,d) Effect of varying $\bar{h}$ for $c_{V}=1.5$; (c) $n=2$, (d) $n=4$.

Figure 5

Figure 5. Parametric studies in $c_{V}$ and $c_{R}$ for both (a) Regime 1 and (b) Regime 2 as given in table 1. Solid black lines correspond to delineations between flow regimes as predicted by the long-wave model. Symbols correspond to DNS results, with squares representing steady states, circles representing (temporally) periodic states and diamonds representing situations where the interface becomes multivalued.

Figure 6

Figure 6. Comparison between the various reduced-order models. Analytical results are shown as a solid, blue line for the full long-wave model (2.7), (3.11); a dashed, green line for the thin-film weighted residual model (3.13), (3.14); a dotted, yellow line for the thick-film gradient model (3.18); a dash-dotted red line for the thin-film gradient (Kelmanson) model (3.19). The black lines correspond to DNS results. The closed loops correspond to the final interfacial shapes. The lines emanating from the centre correspond to the centres of mass of the liquid over time in the respective simulations, while the lines starting further down the $y$-axis correspond to the points of maximal interfacial radius over time. Animations of these comparisons are provided as Movie 1 and Movie 2 respectively in the supplementary material.

Figure 7

Figure 7. Parametric study of the steady states of (4.3) in the absence of inertia. Rotation rate $c_{V}$ is plotted against dimensionless fluid perimeter $s$. (a) Parametric steady state study for $Ca\in \{2,6,10,14,18\}$. The arrow indicates the direction of increasing $Ca$. (b) Detail of boxed region for $Ca=14$ demonstrating the multiplicity of solutions. (c) Interface profiles corresponding to the multiple indicated solutions.

Figure 8

Figure 8. Parametric study on the effect of the Reynolds $Re$ for $Ca=0.157,c_{V}=0.5$ and $c_{R}\in \{1.3,1.4,1.5,1.6\}$. Dashed lines indicate long-wave results (4.3) while the solid lines corresponds to DNS calculations. (a) Dimensionless fluid perimeter $s$ versus Reynolds number. The arrow indicates the direction of increasing $c_{R}$. (b) Interfaces corresponding to $Re=9,7,5,3$ for $c_{R}=1.3,1.4,1.5,1.6$ respectively from left to right, as indicated by the circles on the upper image.

Figure 9

Figure 9. Transient computations of time-periodic solutions using the full long-wave model (2.7), (3.11) for $Re=3.76,Ca=5,c_{V}=0.7$. (a) Time period $T$ and maximal amplitude $A$ of the periodic solutions for varying values of $c_{R}$; (b) space–time plots for $c_{R}=1.1$ (left) and $1.2$ (right), decomposed as (4.4) (with $\tilde{h}$ being plotted); (c) characteristic interfacial shapes for $c_{R}=1.2$ for the draining phase (left) and inertia–capillarity phase (centre). Right: the streamlines when the base flow $v=c_{V}r$ is subtracted off, demonstrating the draining behaviour.

Figure 10

Figure 10. Snapshots of two cases of interfacial break-up, with parameters as in Regime 1 given in table 1. In case (a) this is achieved by the fluid mass slowly draining on the outside of the inert cylinder, while in case (b) strong rotational movement determines centrifugal rupture.

Figure 11

Figure 11. (a) Time evolution of minimum and maximum interfacial thickness $(h-1)$ during the DNS for $c_{V}=1.9,~c_{R}=1.5$ in Regime 1, with the remaining parameters provided in table 1. (b) Interfacial shape and norm of the velocity field restricted to the liquid phase as extracted at the final time step illustrated on the left-hand side. Representative streamlines decorated with arrows indicating the direction of the flow and thick lines indicating the points of minimum (grey) and maximum (black) thickness are also plotted. An animation of this flow regime is included as Movie 3 in the supplementary material.

Figure 12

Figure 12. (a) Time evolution of minimum and maximum interfacial thickness $(h-1)$ during the DNS for $c_{V}=3.0,~c_{R}=1.8$ in Regime 1, with the remaining parameters provided in table 1. (b) Interfacial shape and norm of the velocity field restricted to the liquid phase as extracted at the final time step illustrated on the left-hand side. Representative streamlines decorated with arrows indicating the direction of the flow and thick lines indicating the points of minimum (grey) and maximum (black) thickness are also plotted. An animation of this flow regime is included as Movie 4 in the supplementary material.

Wray and Cimpeanu supplementary movie 1

Video accompaniment to Figure 6(a): comparison of Direct Numerical Simulations and Reduced Order Models for Re = 3:76, We = 0:59, cR = 1:5, cV = 0:5 (Regime 1 in Table 1).
Download Wray and Cimpeanu supplementary movie 1(Video)
Video 801.1 KB

Wray and Cimpeanu supplementary movie 2

Video accompaniment to Figure 6(b): comparison of Direct Numerical Simulations and Reduced Order Models for Re = 3:76, We = 0:59, cR = 1:5, cV = 1 (Regime 1 in Table 1).

Download Wray and Cimpeanu supplementary movie 2(Video)
Video 785 KB

Wray and Cimpeanu supplementary movie 3

Video accompaniment to Figure 11: results of Direct Numerical Simulations for Re = 3:76, We = 0:59, cR = 1:5, cV = 1:9 (Regime 1 in Table 1).

Download Wray and Cimpeanu supplementary movie 3(Video)
Video 28 MB

Wray and Cimpeanu supplementary movie 4

Video accompaniment to Figure 12: results of Direct Numerical Simulations for Re = 3:76, We = 0:59, cR = 1:8, cV = 3:0 (Regime 1 in Table 1).

Download Wray and Cimpeanu supplementary movie 4(Video)
Video 5.8 MB