Air Flow Analysis of a Rotating Cylinder through Numerical Simulation

TL;DR

This paper presents a numerical simulation of airflow around a rotating cylinder using Navier-Stokes equations, analyzing effects of different boundary conditions and speeds on flow variables, with potential applications to diabolo airflow modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a finite difference simulation approach on a transformed grid to analyze flow around a rotating cylinder across various speeds and boundary conditions.

Findings

High velocity gradients cause increased stress and temperature near the cylinder.

Pressure and density decrease with increasing cylinder speed.

The method can be extended to model airflow around a diabolo.

Abstract

The complete flow field surrounding a rotating cylinder is calculated by solving the Navier-Stokes equations using the finite difference method. The numerical simulation is performed on a transformed rectilinear grid, with axes representing the radial and angular dimensions. Different boundary conditions of the simulations are tested by changing the tangential speed of the rotating cylinder, ranging from subsonic to supersonic speed. The following variables in the modeled flow fields are analyzed: temperature, velocity, pressure, density, and stress. The large gradient of velocity near the cylinder is found to create high stress, which leads to rise in temperature. Pressure and density near the cylinder decreases as the speed of the cylinder increases. The proposed simulation method and analysis of air flow can be extended to the modeling of air flow around a Diabolo.