R. Natarajan et al., FLOW PAST A ROW OF FLAT PLATES AT LARGE REYNOLDS-NUMBERS, Proceedings - Royal Society. Mathematical and physical sciences, 441(1912), 1993, pp. 211-235
The steady, incompressible, high Reynolds number, viscous flow past a
row of flat plates is computed by a Galerkin finite element discretiza
tion of the Navier-Stokes equations in the stream function/vorticity f
ormulation. A novel implementation of the inflow and outflow boundary
conditions is described, which combines numerical stability with compu
tational economy in the solution procedure. The calculations reported
here cover the range of medium and small blockage ratios, i.e. 5 less-
than-or-equal-to a less-than-or-equal-to 25 (where a is the inverse bl
ockage ratio). A transition is found from narrow wake eddies for small
values of a, to wide wake eddies for values of a above a(crit) almost
-equal-to 15. This transition is in general agreement with the trends
reported earlier by Fornberg (1991), for the related problem of flow p
ast a row of circular cylinders (for which a(crit) was approximately 8
).