Development of a computer program for the prediction of flow in a rotating cavity

A computer program has been developed to predict laminar source-sink flow in a rotating cylindrical cavity. Although the program is based on a standard finite difference technique for recirculating flow, it incorporates two novel features. Step changes in grid size are employed to obtain sufficient resolution in the boundary layers and special treatment is given to the solution of the pressure correction equations, in the 'SIMPLE' algorithm, in order to improve the convergence properties of the method. Results are presented both for the flow in an infinite rotating cylindrical annulus and a finite rotating cylindrical cavity, with the inner cylindrical surface acting as a uniform source and the outer cylinder as a sink. These show good agreement with existing analytical solutions and illustrate some of the problems associated with the computation of rapidly rotating flows.