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Flow Configurations in a Lid Driven Cavity

with Throughflow

A. Dragomirescu, N. Alleborn, H. Raszillier, and F. Durst

Lehrstuhl f
ur Stromungsmechanik
Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat
Erlangen-N
urnberg
Cauerstr. 4, D-91058 Erlangen

Abstract

Between the well explored flow in a channel with a sudden expansion and the one in a
blade chamber, a technical device for paper coating, the flow in a lid driven cavity with
throughflow occupies an intermediate position. In this work it is investigated the multiplicity of the configurations of this flow family with respect to the operating parameters.

In the parameter range explored, the bifurcation diagrams corresponding to the flow
configurations exhibit an interesting structure in which the number and connectivity of
the branches show substantial changes with the operating parameters. With the insight
they offer into the flow, these diagrams give, in their extrapolation to the technical side,
important hints on how to design and operate a device that relies essentially on a lid
driven cavity with throughflow.

Introduction

This paper investigates the flow in a lid driven cavity with throughflow. The domain to be
considered is illustrated in fig. 1.b. Fluid enters the two-dimensional cavity through the
inflow channel at the bottom. The upper horizontal wall of the cavity consists in a moving
lid that forms with the rigid walls of the cavity two horizontal channels through which
fluid may leave the cavity to the left and to the right (outflow region). This geometry
can be looked upon as a topological deformation of a blade chamber, which may become
plausible from looking at a typical form of this chamber (Fig. 1.a). On the other hand
the diagram of the channel with a sudden expansion (Fig. 1.c) shows that if the cavity
in Fig. 1.b is high enough, one would expect a decoupling of the flow in the entrance
(expansion) region of the cavity from the lid driven outflow. This should bring the inflow
configurations close to those of the sudden expansion channel flow. For shallow cavities, on
the contrary, one would expect two effects of the top wall: a) a stagnation reaction in the
flow in the expansion region, with possibly stabilizing consequences on the recirculation
flows, either the symmetric or the asymmetric ones attached to one of the walls, and
b) a driving effect of a moving top wall, which will certainly distort the picture of flow
configurations and perhaps also change it qualitatively.

The extreme configurations of the lid driven cavity with throughflow, the blade chamber
and the sudden expansion channel, were investigated from different backgrounds. The
sudden expansion flow is certainly a prototype flow, which is fascinating because, in spite
of its geometric simplicity, it shows, from the continuing experimental and numerical effort
spent on its investigations, an impressive richness of flow configurations [1][3]. In recent
investigations of a channel with a sudden expansion followed by a sudden contraction
the complex interplay of the stagnating flow in the contraction region with the expansion
flow has been studied (Mizushima et al. [4]), shedding already a light on the additional
complexity of the flow structure to be expected in the present problem. The investigation
of the flow in a blade chamber [5][8] has been conducted primarily with regard to its use
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as a high-speed (paper) coating device.

The purpose of this work was twofold: a) to put the sudden expansion flow in a context
which connects it to an industrial flow device, and b) to perform a few steps towards an
analysis of the (multiplicity) structure of flow configurations in an industrial flow device,
the blade chamber, by embedding it into a (topological) family of flow domains. The
nature of the flow configurations in a simple family chosen for investigation in this paper,
the symmetric lid driven cavity with throughflow, sheds some light on the multiplicity
and type of flow configurations one has to consider in a blade chamber, and also on the
way in which they can be controlled through the geometric or process parameters.

In the next section the problem is formulated in terms of geometric configuration, fluid
properties, flow parameters, and boundary conditions, summarized in characteristic numbers (aspect ratios and Reynolds numbers). The instrument and the method of analysis
are described in Section 3. The instrument is based on the software package FIDAP [9].
The results of the present investigation are presented in section 4 in terms of bifurcation diagrams and streamline contour plots. These results are summarized and discussed
(Section 6) from the technical perspective, which provided one of the motivations for this
work.

Problem formulation

The geometry of the flow domain is shown in Fig. 2. It is characterized by the width di of
the inflow channel, the width D and the height H of the cavity, and the widths dof and
dob of the outflow channels. With a symmetric entrance expansion and two equal outflow
channels, the flow geometry has a reflection symmetry around the middle axis. The fluid,
considered to be Newtonian and incompressible, is characterized by its density and its

dynamic viscosity . The characteristics of the flow regime are the flow rate Qi at the
inlet and the velocity Uw of the wall on top of the cavity.

Three length rations and two Reynolds numbers can be introduced as dimensionless parameters for characterizing the flow. The length ratios are the expansion ratio li = D/di ,
the aspect ratio la = H/D, and the width ratio for the outflow against the inflow lo
= do /di . The Reynolds numbers are Rei = 3 Qi /2 , which specifies the inflow, and
Rew = do Uw /, which characterizes the motion of the upper wall.

The computations were made in terms of these dimensionless parameters. However, due
to the relatively large number of them, some of the parameters were kept constant. Thus,
the computations were performed for various Reynolds numbers only, while li , la , and lo
were kept fixed. This approach seems to be appropriate for the first step of investigation,
which concentrates on a neighborhood of the sudden expansion flow. However, for a
more detailed investigation of the connection with the blade chamber, the variation of all
the parameters becomes important.

When la (the sudden expansion case) the outflow region of the cavity is pushed
away from the expansion, so that in between is room enough for the appearance of a
fully developed channel flow, during which possible asymmetric flow configurations at the
expansion fall into oblivion. In practice, the cavity can be considered as infinite as soon
as it is large enough compared with the recirculation zones in the sudden expansion flow.

The boundary conditions for the flow are the usual ones of no slip on the fixed and moving
walls. Also, the inflow and outflow conditions have to be specified. At the inlet the velocity
profile is taken as parabolic with a mean velocity U i equal to two-thirds of the maximal
velocity Ui,max . This mean velocity gives the inflow rate per unit channel width: Qi = di U i
(or Qi = 2 di Ui,max /3). Both outlets are considered free of normal stress. This condition
guarantees that at the outflow boundaries the internal flow in the cavity accommodates to
a reference pressure, p = 0 in our case, inasmuch as the flow in the two channels reaches a
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state of full development. Hence the lengths Lof and Lob and the heights dof and dob of the
forward and backward outflow channels determine how the inflow rate Qi distributes
between these two channels (such as Qof + Qob = Qi ). The choices dof = dob (= di ) and
Lof = Lob (= Lo ) in this paper expresses the close relationship for the channel flow with
a symmetric sudden expansion. The process of approaching the configuration of a blade
chamber would imply dof dob .

The length Li of the inflow channel and the (common) length Lo of the two outflow channels introduce two additional numbers into the problem: ci = Li /di and co = Lo /do . Their
choices become of great relevance when approaching the geometry of a blade chamber,
because of possible involvement of capillarity in this device.

Methods and instruments of analysis

The objective of the flow analysis is to study the multiplicity and connectivity structure
of the two dimensional flow configurations in the cavity, or, in other words, the bifurcation
analysis.

The computations of the flow fields were performed with the CFD software package FIDAP
[9] and its Finite-element method in the Galerkin formulation. The continuum region of the
flow was divided into 6360 quadrilateral elements (a mesh with 6156 grid points Fig. 3)
that discretize the equations of momentum and mass conservation into an equation system
of about 25000 degrees of freedom. Several branches of the solutions of this system were
identified by a zero-order, one-parameter continuation scheme. One of the continuation
parameters was the Reynolds number Rei . Each new solution of the nonlinear equation
system was sought by starting a Newton algorithm with a previous solution.

Furthermore, the influence of the mesh was investigated by using a second, more refinded
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grid consisting of 24260 elements (24211 grid points). How the mesh influenced the results
it is also presented in Section 4.

Studies of the sudden expansion flow revealed that below a certain value of Rei the flow
equations possess a unique solution [3]. Therefore it is convenient to start the computations
initially from low values of Rei . The detailed path of continuation sequences, in order to
uncover a picture of the flow multiplicity, especially for the detection of disconnected
solution branches rests on some intuition.

To obtain a compact graphical characterization of the individual solutions, a suitable


functional was chosen. This is the first moment of the axial velocity taken at a given
height y = yf in the chamber, and has the expression:

D/2
Z

f (yf , . . .) =

x uy (x, yf ) dx

(1)

D/2

The ellipsis stays here for other possible parameters, like Reynolds numbers and/or aspect
ratios.

Due to the fact that this functional is antisymmetric, its value will be zero for flows which
are symmetric with respect to the symmetry axis of the domain. Positive values of the
functional will correspond to situations in which the flow attaches to the front wall,
while for situations in which the flow attaches to the back wall this functional will have
negative values.

Results

The momemntum and mass conservatin equations were solved in their dimensionless form.
As reference length the width di of the inflow channel was chosen, while the reference
velocity was adopted as the maximum velocity at the inlet, Ui,max . After nondimensionalization, the geometric parameters of the chamber become: di = 1, Li = ci , D = li ,
H = li la , dof = dob = do = lo , and Lof = Lob = Lo = lo co . The dimensionless maximum
velocity at the inlet is now Ui,max = 1.

The computations were performed for a fixed expansion of ratio li = 6, a fixed aspect
ratio la = 2, and a fixed value lo = 1. The inflow and outflow ratios were chosen as ci = 1
and co = 5, respectively. With these, the dimensionless velocity of the upper wall becomes
Uw = Rew /Rei , since do /di = lo = 1. For convenience, this velocity will be used instead
of Rew in the following, so the subscript i in the notation Rei can be dropped (i.e. Re).
The following remark should be added here: the definition of the dimensionless upper wall
velocity implies that a constant value of Uw means that the real velocity of the upper wall
changes with the inflow velocity.

In the dimensionless equations the fluid density is now replaced by the Reynolds number
Re and the dynamic viscosity by 1.

The computations, which were performed for different Reynolds numbers and different
velocities of the upper wall, moved in a two-dimensional parameter space:

Re , Uw .

(2)

The functional (1) was computed and plotted for a fixed height yf = 2.269. Therefore, f
becomes now f (Re, Uw ).
8

The path in the parameter space (2) focused on the influence of the top wall velocity on
the flow picture. The computations were performed for increasing values of this velocity:
Uw = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 7.0, 7.3, 7.4, and 8.0.

4.1

Top wall at rest Uw = 0

For this situation, the computations revealed at low Reynolds numbers Re a symmetric
bifurcation picture (Fig. 4), similar to the flow in a channel with a sudden expansion having
the same ratio for D/di . Fig. 4 show the presence of a bifurcation point at Recr 37,
which agrees well with the results presented in [3].

The bifurcation picture displays a unique, symmetric and stable stationary flow configuration I for Re < Recr and three configurations above Recr : I 0 , II+ si II . Fig. 5 displays
the stream lines for configurations I 0 and II at Re = 50. Flow I 0 is symmetric with
respect to the symmetry axis and has to recirculation vortices. Flow II is asymmetrically attached to the back wall and shows also two recirculation vortices, although not
equally sized. Flow II+ , which is not shown, is the reflection of II with respect to the
symmetry axis. The number and structure of the recirculation vortices changes when the
Reynolds number increases. For Re = 300 the symmetric flow I 0 shows three vortices on
each side of the main stream while in the asymmetric flow II only four vortices appear:
one at the back wall and the other three interposed between the main stream and the
front wall.

Moving wall Uw 6= 0

The motion of the upper wall breaks the reflection symmetry of the flow. Due to this fact,
the bifurcation diagram changes qualitatively, from a perfect bifurcation in the symmetry
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case to an imperfect bifurcation. Also, as a consequence of the wall motion, an additional


change is to be expected. The two asymmetric flows will be influenced differently by
the wall motion and, while the flow attached to the front wall of the chamber (II+ )
is expected to be stabilized, the one attached to the back wall (II ) will probably
be destabilized. For a sufficiently high velocity of the top wall, one expect that this
last flow, of given Reynolds number Re, will be swept away from the back wall of the
chamber.

Expressed in terms of the bifurcation diagram, it is to be expected that for Uw > 0


the symmetric branch I will be continuated smoothly by the upper branch II+ around
Re = Recr . The lower branch, II , on the other hand, will probably end at a certain
Reynolds number and the higher the velocity Uw is, the sooner this end is supposed to
appear.

Fig. 7.a and 7.b presents the bifurcation diagrams for Uw between 0.1 and 4.0. The diagrams show that the expectations presented before are fulfilled. Around Recr 37 branch
I turns smoothly into branch II+ that remains almost unchanged. The other two branches,
I 0 originating from the symmetric branch I 0 corresponding to Uw = 0 and II become isolated, being linked by two turning points T1 and T2 located at Recr,1 and Recr,2 .
Streamlines for the three configurations at Uw = 1.0 and Re = 50 are presented in Fig. 8.

Starting from a Reynolds number close to 0 and increasing it in small steps, flow configurations corresponding to branches I and then II+ will be obtained. It means that the
main flow will attach to the front wall (Fig. 8.a) and will remain attached to this wall.
Flow configurations corresponding to branches I 0 (Fig. 8.b) and II (Fig. 8.c) could be
obtained if perturbations are introduced: abrupt changes of the Reynolds number from
values Re < Recr to values Re Recr or changes in value (and sign) of the velocity Uw .

The velocity of the upper wall influences where the turning points are located. With
increasing Uw the location of T1 remains almost unchanged, but the location of T2 moves
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towards smaller Reynolds numbers and the size of isolas formed by branches I 0 and II
decreases. Taking into account this fact one could say that for high enough velocities of
the upper wall the isolas will dissapear completely.

This assumption seems not to be correct according to our computations. An interesting


change in the bifurcation picture occurs at higher velocities Uw . At a critical velocity, Uw,cr
between 7.3 and 7.4, a new bifurcation point seems to exist, connecting the upper branch,
II+ , with the lower ones, I 0 and II . For Uw > Uw,cr this bifurcation point disappears
and the connectivity of the branches changes to a hysteresis-like configuration. Branch I
is now continued by branch II that evolves further up to the critical Reynolds number
Recr,2 , for which the turning point T2 appears. At this point, a further increase in the
Reynolds number will make the flow to change suddenly its configurations to the ones
corresponding to branch II+ . On the other side, if at point T2 the Reynolds number is
decreased, the flow will evolve according to branch I 0 down to a new turning point T10
0
located at a Reynolds number Recr,1
. At this point, a further decrease of the Reynolds

number will bring the flow to configurations corresponding to branch I, while a new
increase of the Reynolds number will have as result flow configurations corresponding to
branch II+ .

In order to study the influence of the computational mesh on the aspect of the bifurcation
diagrams, for Uw = 0.1, 7.3 si 7.4 the numerical investigations were repeated using a
second, finer mesh having 24260 elements. Fig. 10 and 11 present comparisons of the
bifurcation diagrams obtained with the first and the second mesh. The plots show that
the mesh refinement had practically no qualitative and quantitative influence on the
bifurcation diagrams in the region of Recr 37. However, at higher Reynolds numbers
the refined mesh produced small changes of the bifurcation diagrams. Thus, the turning
points T2 moved slightly to the left, which correspond to a small decrease of Recr,2 .

11

Summary and discussion

The object of this investigation was a simple flow configuration, a lid driven cavity with
throughflow, which establishes a link between a well understood category of channel flows
and a second flow category, which comes close to certain technical devices in process
engineering. The purpose of the investigation was to gain an insight into the number and
nature of (two-dimensional) flow configurations allowed by those flow parameters which in
process engineering should be accesible and also sufficient to control the flow completely.
The instruments of the investigation were essentially commercial numerical tools for flow
computation.

The results obtained show that there is a pronounced qualitative change in the multiplicity
of the flow configurations in a lid driven cavity with throughflow as one departs from the
relatively simple configuration of a channel with a sudden expansion towards the geometric
shapes of technical coating devices. The parameter ranges considered reveal the existence
of a rich variety of flow configurations. At low values of the velocity Uw flow configurations
separated from the main branch were found. They form isolas whose size decreases when
Uw increases. But instead of disappearing, as one could expect, these isolas turn into a
hysteresis configuration for wall velocities greater than a critical value Uw,cr found between
7.3 and 7.4.

To study the influence of the computational grid on the results, investigations were repeated using a more refined mesh. They confirm the correctness of the first results obtained
at relatively low Reynolds numbers (around Recr ) where the aspect of the bifurcation diagrams remaines practically unchanged. On the other side, they show that at high Reynolds
numbers reliable results demand finer grids.

Considered with respect to the aspect of application to coating blade chamber, the diagrams displayed in this paper are given for the situation that during operation the flow
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configurations are followed in such a way that the web velocity is continuously changed
with the flow rate of the coating liquid, which means that a fixed ratio Uw = Rew /Re is
kept. For flow device operation one would, of course, like to have available the whole flow
picture over the entire plane of the operating parameters (Re, Rew ). Then one could use
the flow information to decide what route g(Re, Rew ) = 0 of operation to follow.

13

References
[1] W. Cherdron, F. Durst, and J. H. Whitelaw, Asymetric flows and instabilities in
symmetric ducts with sudden expansion, J. Fluid Mech. 84, 13 (1978).
[2] R. M. Fearn, T. Mullin, and K. A. Cliffe, Nonlinear flow phenomena in a symmetric
sudden expansion, J. Fluid Mech. 211, 595 (1990).
[3] N. Alleborn, K. Nandakumar, F. Durst, and H. Raszillier, Further contributions on
the two-dimensional flow in a sudden expansion, J. Fluid Mech. 330, 169 (1997).
[4] J. Mizushima, and Y. Shiotani, Transitions and instabilities of flow in a symmetric
channel with a suddenly expanded and contracted part, J. Fluid Mech. 434, 355369
(2001).
[5] C. K. Aidun, N. G. Triantafillopoulos, and J. D. Benson, Global stability of a liddriven cavity with throughflow: Flow visualization studies, Phys. Fluids A 3, 2081
(1991).
[6] N. Ramanan and G. M. Homsy, Linear stability of lid-driven cavity flow, Phys. Fluids 6, 2690 (1994)
[7] C.K. Aidun, An overview of blade coating systems, Industrial Coating Research 3,
75 (1995).
[8] Z. Cao and M. N. Esmail, Numerical study on hydrodynamics of short-dwell paper
coaters, AIChE Journal 41, 1833 (1995).
[9] FIDAP (Fluid Dynamics Analysis Package), Version 7.52 (FDI, Evanston, IL, 1996).
[10] N.G. Triantafillopoulos and C.K. Aidun, Relationship between flow instability in
short-dwell ponds and cross directional coat weight non uniformities, Tappi J., June,
127 (1990).
[11] J.D. Benson and C.K. Aidun, Transition to unsteady nonperiodic state in a throughflow lid-driven cavity, Phys. Fluids A 4, 2316 (1992).
14

List of Figures

The lid driven cavity with throughflow put into context with other flow
types: a) the blade chamber, an industrial (paper) coating device; b) the
lid driven cavity with throughflow; c) the channel with a sudden expansion. 17

Parameters and coordinate system for the flow domain.

The 6360 elements computational mesh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Bifurcation diagram for Uw = 0.

Streamlines for Uw = 0 at Re = 50: a) the symmetric flow I 0 , and b) the


asymmetric flow II .

. . . . . . . . . . 18

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Streamlines for Uw = 0 at Re = 300: a) the symmetric flow I 0 , and b) the


asymmetric flow II .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Bifurcation diagrams for: a) Uw = 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, and b) Uw = 1.0, 2.0, 4.0. . 23

Streamlines for Uw = 1.0 at Re = 50: a) corresponding to branch II+ , b)


corresponding to branch I 0 , and c) corresponding to branch II .

. . . . . 24

Bifurcation diagram for Uw = 7.0, 7.3, 7.4, and 8.0. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10

Comparison for Uw = 0.1 between the bifurcation diagram obtained with


the 6360 elements mesh and the bifurcation diagram obtained with the
refined mesh of 24360 elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

15

11

Comparison for between the bifurcation diagram obtained with the 6360
elements mesh and the bifurcation diagram obtained with the refined mesh
of 24360 elements: a) Uw = 7.3 and b) Uw = 7.4.

16

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

a)

b)

c)

Figure 1: The lid driven cavity with throughflow put into context with other flow types:
a) the blade chamber, an industrial (paper) coating device; b) the lid driven cavity with
throughflow; c) the channel with a sudden expansion.

17

Figure 2: Parameters and coordinate system for the flow domain.

18

Figure 3: The 6360 elements computational mesh.

19

0.2
II+

0.15
0.1

f(Re)

0.05
I

-0.05
-0.1
-0.15
II-0.2
0

50

100

150

200

Re
Figure 4: Bifurcation diagram for Uw = 0.

20

250

300

a)

b)
Figure 5: Streamlines for Uw = 0 at Re = 50: a) the symmetric flow I 0 , and b) the
asymmetric flow II .

21

a)

b)
Figure 6: Streamlines for Uw = 0 at Re = 300: a) the symmetric flow I 0 , and b) the
asymmetric flow II .

22

a)

b)
Figure 7: Bifurcation diagrams for: a) Uw = 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, and b) Uw = 1.0, 2.0, 4.0.

23

a)

b)

c)

Figure 8: Streamlines for Uw = 1.0 at Re = 50: a) corresponding to branch II+ , b)


corresponding to branch I 0 , and c) corresponding to branch II .

24

Figure 9: Bifurcation diagram for Uw = 7.0, 7.3, 7.4, and 8.0.

25

0.2

6360 elements
24260 elements

0.15
0.1

f(Re)

0.05
0
-0.05
-0.1
-0.15
-0.2
0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Re
Figure 10: Comparison for Uw = 0.1 between the bifurcation diagram obtained with the
6360 elements mesh and the bifurcation diagram obtained with the refined mesh of 24360
elements.

26

0.2
0.15

6360 elements
24260 elements

0.1

f(Re)

0.05
0
-0.05
-0.1
-0.15
-0.2
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Re

a)

0.2
0.15

6360 elements
24260 elements

0.1

f(Re)

0.05
0
-0.05
-0.1
-0.15
-0.2
0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Re

b)
Figure 11: Comparison for between the bifurcation diagram obtained with the 6360 elements mesh and the bifurcation diagram obtained with the refined mesh of 24360 elements:
a) Uw = 7.3 and b) Uw = 7.4.
27

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