Shear-Driven Flow in an Elliptical Enclosure Generated by an Inner Rotating Circular Cylinder

Abstract: Shear-driven flow between a rotating cylinder and a stationary elliptical enclosure is studied in this paper. Two-dimensional time-dependent Navier Stokes equations are solved using a meshless method where interpolations are done with Polyharmonic Spline Radial Basis Functions. The fluid flow is analyzed for various aspect ratios of the ellipse and eccentric placements of the inner cylinder. Contour plots of vorticity with streamlines, plots of non-dimensional torque, and the angle of eye of the primary vortex are presented in the paper for Reynolds numbers between 200 and 2000. Formation of Moffatt like vortices in the wide-gap region of the model is observed and some benchmark data are provided for various cases that are simulated.