Computation of Viscous Flow between Two Arbitrarily Moving Cylinders of Arbitrary Cross Section

Abstract

An algorithm is constructed for numerical study of the plane viscous flow (in the Stokes approximation) between two arbitrarily moving cylinders of arbitrary cross section. The mathematical model of the problem is described by the biharmonic equation, which is reduced, with the help of the Goursat representation, to a system of equations for two harmonic functions. The system is solved numerically by applying the boundary element method without saturation. As a result, the desired biharmonic stream function and the velocity field are determined. Test examples are used to compare the results with well-known exact solutions for circular cylinders.