On the flow of a viscous fluid driven along a channel by suction at porous walls

Abstract

This paper is a theoretical treatment of the flow of a viscous incompressible fluid driven along a channel by steady uniform suction through porous parallel rigid walls. Many authors have found such flows when they are symmetric, steady and two-dimensional, by assuming a similarity form of solution due to Berman in order to reduce the Navier-Stokes equations to a nonlinear ordinary differential equation. We generalise their work by considering asymmetric flows, unsteady flows and three-dimensional perturbations. By use of numerical calculations, matched asymptotic expansions for large values of the Reynolds number, and the theory of dynamical systems, we find many more exact solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations, examine their stability, and interpret them. In particular, we show that most previously found steady solutions are unstable to antisymmetric two-dimensional disturbances. This leads to a pitchfork bifurcation, stable asymmetric steady solutions, a Hopf bifurcation, stable time-periodic solutions, stable quasi-periodic solutions, phase locking and chaos in succession as the Reynolds number increases.