Laminar flow through a slowly rotating straight pipe

Abstract

We consider fully developed steady laminar flow through a pipe that is rotating slowly about a line perpendicular to its own axis. The solution is expanded for low Reynolds numbers in powers of a single combined similarity parameter and the series extended to 34 terms by computer. Analysis shows that convergence is limited by a square-root singularity on the negative real axis of the similarity parameter. An Euler transformation and extraction of the leading, secondary and tertiary singularities at infinity render the series accurate for all values of the similarity parameter. The major conclusion of this investigation is that the friction ratio in a slowly rotating pipe grows asymptotically as the ⅛ power of the similarity parameter and not as the ¼ power as previously deduced from boundary-layer analysis. This discrepancy between the present computer-extended method and boundary-layer analysis has also occurred in the similar problem of flow through a loosely coiled pipe (Van Dyke 1978).