Prandtl's Equations: Numerical Results about Singularity Formation and a New Numerical Method
Abstract
In this work, new numerical results about singularity formation for unsteady Prandtl's equations are presented. Extensive computations with a Lax Wendroff scheme for the impulsively started circular cylinder show that the gradient of the velocity becomes infinite in a finite time. The accuracy and the simplicity of the Lax Wendroff scheme allow us to couple the resolution given by second order accuracy in space with the detail of an extremely fine grid. Thus, while these computations confirm previous results about singularity formation (Van Dommelen and Shen, Cebeci, Wang), they differ in other respects. In fact the peak in the velocity gradient appears to be located upstream of the region of reversed flow and away from the zero vorticity line. Some analytic arguments are also presented to support these conclusions, independently of the computations. In the second part of this work another new numerical method to solve the unsteady Prandtl equations is proposed. This numerical scheme derives from Chorin's Vortex Sheet method. The equations are also solved with operator splitting, but, unlike Chorin's, this scheme is deterministic. This feature is achieved using a Lagrangian particle formulation for the convective step and solving the diffusion step with finite differences on an Eulerian mesh. Finally, a numerical convergence proof is presented.
- Publication:
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Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- January 1990
- Bibcode:
- 1990PhDT.......102P
- Keywords:
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- BOUNDARY LAYER THEORY;
- Mathematics; Physics: Fluid and Plasma