COUETTE FLOW DERIVATION

Consider the viscous flow between two parallel plates separated by

the vertical distance D .The upper plate is moving at a velocity u e , and
the lower plate is stationary; i.e., its velocity is u=0. The flow in the xy
plane is sketched below. The Flow Field between the two plates is
driven exclusively by the shear stress exerted on the fluid by moving
the upper plate, resulting in a velocity profile across the flow, u=u(y).

The governing equation for this

flow is the x-momentum equation, given by equation (1),

………………………….(1)

When applied to the coquette flow, this equation is greatly

simplified, as follows. Examining the figure, we note that the model
for coquette flow stretches to plus and minus infinity in the x-
direction. Since there is no beginning and end of this flow, the flow

field variables must be independent of x; that is, for

all quantities. Moreover from the continuity equation, written for the
steady flow,

…………… (a)
Since for couette flow,equation (a) becomes,

……………..(b)

Evaluated at the lower wall, where v=0 at y=0, equation (b) yields

Or, ……………….(c)

If we extend v in a taylor series about the point y=0, we have

…………….(d)

Evaluated at the upper wall,equation(d) becomes

……………..(e)

Since both v(D)=0 and v(o)=0, as well as from equation

(c), the only result that makes sense in equation (e) Is that
for all n, and hence

v=0 ……………………..(f)

everywhere .This is a physical quantity of couette flow , namely, that

there is no vertical component of velocity anywhere. This states that
the streamlines for Couette flow are straight, parallel streamlines –a
result which is almost intuitively obvious simply by inspecting the
figure. Finally the y- momentum equation,

We have, for couette flow with no body forces,

……………………(g)

In aerodynamics problems, fluids can be assumed to be newtonian,

for such fluids,

…………………..(h)

Hence, with ,equation(g) yields,

…………………….(i)

Conclusion: For coquette flow, there are no pressure gradients in

either the x or y direction. With all the above information, we return
to the x-momentum equation. From this equation, for unsteady,
two-dimensional flow with no body forces, we have

…………..(j)

As from the equation of newtonian fluids,

……………………(k)
 ……………………(l)

Substituting (k) and (l) into (j),we have, for couette flow,

…………….(m)

At this stage, we will now assume an incompressible, steady,

constant- tempreture flow for which µ=constant. With this, (m)
becomes

…………………(n)

The above equation is the governing equation for incompressible,

constant-tempreture, steady couette flow.

The analytical solution,

Therefore, velocity profile,

Numerical solution:

Let us assume that velocity profile is not linear in unsteady flow and
it may be defined as
Therefore it is evident that as time proceeds velocity profile turned
to be linear and flow becomes steady.

At ,velocity profile linear & flow is steady.

Now from x-momentum equation (m) without omitting the unsteady

term we get,

, which is parabolic and therefore it must be time

marching problem with given initial conditions & boundary
conditions.

Let us first non-dimensionalise the quantities-

Therefore,

For simplicity dropping primes-

Nature of PDE and its stability criteria

if the partial differential equation be as given below :

Now using the crank –Nicolson implicit method, from discretisation

which is based on the finite difference method which we have
dissussed earlier, we get

From equation(A) by discretisation with Nicolson-crank method

Grouping all the terms at time level n+1 on L.H.S the following
discretised equation is obtained:
Where,

The grid for the flow is as follows where n=1 at the fixed plate and
n=N+1 at moving top plate. So boundary conditions are:

From equation (B), we get for i=2 to N

So the equations in (c) can be written in the matrix form using the
boundary conditions, as follows:
Now applying TDMA, we can solve the above simultaneous linear
equations numerically:

Now applying TDMA, we can solve the above simultaneous linear

equations numerically:

Thomas Algorithm for tri-diagonal matrix(D)

Thomas Algorithm for TDMA(Tridiagonal matrix Algorithm)

Let us take a general Tridiagonal Matrix as given below:

Equation (A.1,A.2,…..A.N) represents a system for N linear simultaneous equations with N unknowns

Standard method for solving a system of linear algebraic equation is

Gaussian elimination.
The Thomas algorithm is essentially the result of applying Gaussian
elimination as follows:

The pattern which is developing is- (A.6) can be obtained from (A.2) by dropping first term, replacing

by , keeping third term unchanged and replacing by

Similarly,(A.7) is obtained from(A.3) by dropping first term, replacing by

Keeping third term unchanged and by replacing

; So if we generalize the pattern-

This completes the solution.