Steady Flow in a Curved Pipe with Circular Cross-Section. Comparison of Numerical and Experimental Results

ABSTRACT

Numerical solution has been obtained of the equations of motion of a viscous incompressible fluid in a curved annular conduit with circular cross-section. These equations are approximated by finite-difference equations which are of the second-order accuracy with respect to the grid sizes. The computed results are presented for the range 96 ≤ D ≤ 8000 , where D is the Dean number of the flow and for various sizes of core radii, the limiting cases of a very large and a very small core being also studied. It is shown that in the case of a small core radius, the variation of the Dean number affects significantly the flow properties, situation which is not observed when the core radius is large.