Three-Dimensional Lid-Driven Cavity Flow: Experiment and Simulation

摘要

A facility has been constructed to study shear-driven, recirculating flow, namely, a three-dimensional lid-driven cavity flow. In the extant case, the cavity depth-to-width aspect ratio is 1:1, while the span-to-width aspect ratio is 3:1. A description of the circulation cell structure obtained by flow visualization is given for two Reynolds numbers with and without temperature-induced density stratification. The experimental results are compared to simulations by two different numerical codes, one employing finite differences and one employing finite elements. The numerical codes reproduce the overall behavior observed in the experiments, but fail to simulate observed longitudinal vortices. There are some significant differences also between the numerical results, highlighting the effects of using the HYBRID (upwind/central) differencing scheme in one code. (ERA citation 10:011506)