Thin-film Rayleigh–Taylor instability in the presence of a deep periodic corrugated wall

Rayleigh–Taylor instability of a thin liquid film overlying a passive fluid is examined when the film is attached to a periodic wavy deep corrugated wall. A reduced-order long-wave model shows that the wavy wall enhances the instability toward rupture when the interface pattern is sub-harmonic to the wall pattern. An expression that approximates the growth constant of instability is obtained for any value of wall amplitude for the special case when the wall consists of two full waves and the interface consists of a full wave. Nonlinear computations of the interface evolution show that sliding is arrested by the wavy wall if a single liquid film residing over a passive fluid is considered but not necessarily when a bilayer sandwiched by a top wavy wall and bottom flat wall is considered. In the latter case interface tracking shows that primary and secondary troughs will evolve and subsequently slide along the flat wall due to symmetry-breaking. It is further shown that this sliding motion of the interface can ultimately be arrested by the top wavy wall, depending on the holdup of the fluids. In other words, there exists a critical value of the interface position beyond which the onset of the sliding motion is observed and below which the sliding is always arrested.

MHD convective process due to rotation of cylinders and movement of a wavy wall of two-sided wavy enclosures with radiation

Purpose This paper aims to study the mixed convective process due to various dynamics, namely, inner rotating cylinders and upper-wavy wall movement for the first time. Design/methodology/approach The Galerkin finite element method together with the characteristic-based split scheme is applied to solve the governing system. Findings The main outcomes revealed that the direction of the rotation of the cylinders, radius and locations of the rotating shapes are beneficial controlling elements for the enhancement of heat transfer. Also, for all the considered cases, values of the Bejan number indicate that the fluid friction irreversibility is dominance compared to the heat transfer irreversibility. Further, average values of the heat transfer entropy, fluid friction entropy and total entropy are minimized in the case of fixed cylinders regardless of the cylinder radius. Originality/value The authors are interested in the mixed convection case due to regular boundaries and hence this simulation purposes a first attempt to examine the mixed convective flow due to irregular wavy boundaries. This study considered various dynamics, namely, inner rotating cylinders and wavy-lid driven wall which makes it more attractive to the readers. Various cases based on radius of the cylinder and direction of the rotations together with several locations of the rotating shapes are taken into account which makes the current simulation is comprehensive. Various studies presented in this field are made by commercial software and these treatments need special conditions (having limitation) but the current solution methodology is based on a finite element method home-code. Various important impacts, are, also, examined, namely, inclined geometry, inclined magnetic field, thermal radiation and heat generation/absorption. The entropy of the current complex system is analyzed based on the second law of thermodynamics.

Magnetohydrodynamic thermal characteristics of water-based hybrid nanofluid-filled non-Darcian porous wavy enclosure: effect of undulation

Purpose The aims of this study is to numerically investigate the thermal phenomena during magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) free convection in an oblique enclosure filled with porous media saturated with Cu–Al2O3/water hybrid nanofluid and heated at the left wavy wall. The thermophysical phenomena are explored thoroughly by varying the amplitude (λ) and undulation (n) of the wavy wall and the inclination of the enclosure (γ) along with other pertinent physical parameters. Darcy–Rayleigh number (Ram), Darcy number (Da), Hartmann number (Ha) and nanoparticle volumetric fraction (ϕ). The effect of all parameters has been analyzed and represented by using heatlines, isotherms, streamlines, average Nusselt number and local Nusselt number. Design/methodology/approach The finite volume method is used to work out the transport equations coupled with velocity, pressure and temperature subjected to non-uniform staggered grid structure after grid-sensitivity analysis by an indigenous computing code and the semi-implicit method for pressure linked equations (SIMPLE) algorithm. The solution process is initiated following an iterative approach through the alternate direction implicit sweep technique and the tridiagonal matrix algorithm (TDMA) algorithm. The iterative process is continued until successive minimization of the residuals (<1e-8) for the governing equations. Findings This study reveals that the increase in the heating surface area does not always favor heat transfer. An increase in the undulation amplitude enhances the heat transfer; however, there is an optimum value of undulation of the wavy wall for this. The heat transfer enhancement because of the wall curvature is revealed at higher Ram, lower Da and Ha and lower volume fraction of nanoparticles. In general, this augmentation is optimum for four undulations of the wavy wall with an amplitude of λ = 0.3. The heat transfer enhancement can be more at the cavity inclination γ = 45°. Research limitations/implications The technique of this investigation could be used in other multiphysical areas involving partial porous layers, conducting objects, different heating conditions, wall motion, etc. Practical implications This study is to address MHD thermo-fluid phenomena of Cu–Al2O3/water-based hybrid nanofluid flow through a non-Darcian porous wavy cavity at different inclinations. The amplitude and number of undulations of the wavy wall, permeability of the porous medium, magnetic field intensity, nanoparticle volumetric fraction and inclinations of the enclosure play a significant role in the heat transfer process. This analysis and the findings of this work can be useful for the design and control of similar thermal systems/devices. Originality/value Many researchers have examined the problem of buoyancy-induced free convection in a wavy-porous cavity packed with regular fluids or nanofluids. However, the effect of magnetic fields along with the amplitude (λ) at different undulations (n) of the heated wavy wall of an inclined enclosure is not attended so far to understand the transport mechanisms. Most often, the evolutions of the thermo-fluid phenomena in such complex geometries invoking different multiphysics are very intricate. Numerical implementations for simulations and subsequent post-processing of the results are also challenging.

Estimating RANS model uncertainty using machine learning

In this work we present a machine-learning strategy developed to estimate the uncertainty introduced by a turbulence model for the prediction of a turbulent separated flows. The approach is based on the introduction of eigenvalue perturbations of the Reynolds stress anisotropy; the amount of perturbation is predicted by a random forest algorithm trained on high-fidelity simulations of the flow over a wavy wall. The proposed method is applied to the flow in an asymmetric diffuser and demonstrates how the approach correctly identifies the regions in which modeling errors occur and accurately quantifies the amount of errors when compared to experimental observations.