Abstract

MORALES CONTRERAS, Oscar Adrián et al. Estudio numérico-experimental de zona de separación en conducto rectangular con escalón. Ingenier. mecáni. tecnolog. desarroll [online]. 2010, vol.3, n.5, pp.187-194. ISSN 1665-7381.

The separation and reattachment for a laminar flow through of a forward facing step channel (FFS) was numerically and experimentally studied in this work. Three different Reynolds numbers (269, 365, 530) were analyzed and in order to considered the strong flow tri-dimensionality, the channel aspect ratio was set equal to four (RA=4). Hence the relevance and importance of the present work. The numerical study was done by means of the software Fluent 6.3®, while the experimental study was carried out using the particle image velocimetry (PIV) and a method of smoke visualization. The results showed that the height of the separation zone is not influenced by the Reynolds, whereas its length depends on the u-velocity. The comparison of the numerical and experimental results is acceptable, for example, when measuring at the center of the channel, the height of the separation zone is 0.74h and 0.71h for experimental and numerical analysis respectively, having a difference around 4%.

Keywords : Flow separation; forward facing step channel; numerical simulation; vortex; PIV.