Using Computational Fluid Dynamics to Investigate the Flow of a Viscous Fluid in a Cavity with Oscillating Boundaries

Abstract

Abstract Many everyday engineering applications crucially depend on the mixing efficiency of the appropriate hardware. Chaotic mixing is pertained to be an effective way of attaining high levels of mixing. In this work we report on viscous fluid flow in a cavity, with oscillating boundaries, that exhibits such chaotic motion. Using computational fluid dynamics we explain the transition from order to chaos which can be observed by a cascade of the trajectory orbit of particles as the time period of oscillation is increased. As the system moves from order into chaos it is shown that a particle will be displaced from ordered streamlines to the point where it moves throughout the whole low domain thus showing that good mixing is present. An attempt is also made to characterise the transition to aperiodicity, for the studied configuration.