Effects of an inserted circular cylinder on a steady lid-driven rectangular cavity flow

Abstract

Abstract This paper provides numerical investigations of flow in a steady lid-driven cavity of depth to width ratio 1/3 containing a circular cylinder. The inner cylinder is treated using a direct-forcing immersed boundary method, and a project method is applied to solve the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Three different Reynolds numbers and positions of the cylinder are considered; for a lower Reynolds number, flow structures are weakly affected by the cylinder near the left wall while two clockwise vortices attached to the cylinder are formed as the cylinder moves rightwards; for a moderate Reynolds number, an anticlockwise bottom vortex is formed for the cylinder near the left wall, and it disappears as the cylinder is shifted rightwards; for the largest Reynolds number, two anti-clockwise vortices attached the cylinder are formed for the cylinder close to the left wall, and as the cylinder moves gradually closer to the left wall a bottom vortex is formed and disappears together with the clockwise vortex to the right side of the cylinder.