Study of Laminar, Unsteady Piston-Cylinder Flows

The present paper concerns numerical investigation of a piston-driven, axisymmetric flow in a pipe assembly containing a sudden expansion. The piston closes the larger of the two pipes. The impulsively starting intake flow is the topic of this investigation. Results of numerical calculations and laser-Doppler measurements are presented to provide an insight into the features of the flow. The calculation procedure employed in this study is based on a finite-volume method with staggered grids and SIMPLE-algorithm for pressure-velocity coupling (Patankar and Spalding, 1972). The convection and diffusion fluxes in the Navier-Stokes equations are discretized with first order upwind and second order central differences, respectively. A fully implicit Euler scheme is used to discretize the temporal derivatives. The Navier-Stokes equations were suitably transformed to allow prediction of the flow within the inlet pipe (fixed grid) and cylinder region (moving grid) simultaneously (once-through procedure). Laser-Doppler measurements of both axial and radial velocity components were performed. Refractive index matching was used to eliminate the wall curvature effects. For each measuring point 20 cycles were measured, showing high repetition rates. Comparison of measured and predicted velocity profiles shows good agreement.