Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems - Series S

doi:10.3934/dcdss.2023083

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A TIME DEPENDENT

LUBRICATION PROBLEM ARISING IN MAGNETIC
READING PROCESSES

∗1,2 1 1,2
Iñigo Arregui , José Jesús Cendán and Marı́a González
1 Dept. of Mathematics, Universidade da Coruña, 15071 A Coruña, Spain
2 CITIC, 15071 A Coruña, Spain

Dedicated to Philippe Destuynder

Abstract. We present in this article a numerical technique to simulate the

hydrodynamic behaviour of a magnetic reading device. In the transient regime,
the evolution of the air pressure is computed as the solution of a time dependent
compressible Reynolds equation. The proposed numerical method is based on
a local discontinuous Galerkin method combined with a θ−method for the time
derivative. We present some numerical tests to show the good behaviour of the
numerical scheme.

1. Introduction. Magnetic tape recording is one of the most used systems for
information storing due to its reliability and endurance. In these devices, data are
transferred from a reading/writing head to a hard disk or flexible tape while a thin
layer of air fills the gap between them. Jointly with other factors as the material
properties [24, 33], the geometry of the gap has a great importance in the quality
of the recording. Thus, the hydrodynamic lubrication problem is among the issues
that deserve further analysis and precise numerical simulation.
Hydrodynamic lubrication is present in a large number of industrial processes (see
[20, 23], for example) and has been the object of many research works. Most of the
proposed models are governed by Navier-Stokes equations [22, 32] or by Reynolds
equation [15, 16, 12, 39, 37, 38, 1, 2] when the lubricant layer is thin enough, and
are in general focused on stationary problems.
Models related to magnetic read/write processes, in which the lubricant fluid is
the air, are governed by the compressible Reynolds equation modified for slip flow,
which is a nonlinear convection-dominated convection-diffusion equation. Among
the techniques employed to solve these models, Jai [25] introduced a Locally exact
Partial Differential Equation Method (LPDEM), combined with a Newton-Raphson
method, to solve a one-dimensional homogenization problem related to this setting.
Wu, Talke and Bogy [39, 37, 38] proposed finite element methods to simulate two-
dimensional stationary and time dependent elastohydrodynamic problems. Arregui,
Cendán and Vázquez proposed some numerical schemes for both the hydrodynamic

2020 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary: 65M60.

Key words and phrases. Hydrodynamic problem, compressible Reynolds equation, evolution
model, local discontinuous Galerkin method.
∗ Corresponding author: Iñigo Arregui.

1
2 IÑIGO ARREGUI, JOSÉ JESÚS CENDÁN AND MARÍA GONZÁLEZ

and elastohydrodynamic stationary problems [14, 7, 8]; these methods are based on
duality algorithms [11] and Lagrange-Galerkin discretizations, eventually combined
with a multigrid algorithm [9].
The efficiency of the magnetic reading processes can be increased if the device
presents one or several slots [39]. Thus, the modelling and numerical simulation
must be improved in order to obtain reliable results in the case of discontinuous
functions. Tello [34] made a theoretical analysis of Reynolds equation for incom-
pressible and compressible fluids. From the computational point of view, Wu and
Talke [39] provided some results obtained with a finite element method. More re-
cently, discontinuous Galerkin methods [10, 17, 4, 13, 29, 30] were also proposed to
simulate lubrication problems in the framework of point contact problems [28] or
in the presence of discontinuous geometries [6, 5], for example.
Figures 1 and 2 show an example of a flexible tape device and a rigid disk device,
respectively. In the first one, the gap function depends on the position of the
tape and an elastic problem must also be solved, thus leading to a coupled elasto-
hydrodynamic problem. In the rigid device, the gap function is known and can
depend on time if the head or disk are not fixed. In the present work, we assume that
the gap is a known function, eventually depending on time. We consider the method
proposed in [6] for the stationary problem and extend it to approximate the solution
of the non stationary one (see [18, 40, 21, 26, 35], for example). Thus, we deduce
the mixed formulation of the time dependent Reynolds equation by introducing two
unknown vector functions. We then perform the time discretization by means of a
θ−method and introduce the local discontinuous Galerkin method for the spatial
discretization.

Figure 1. Flexible tape device [12, 8]

The rest of the paper is structured in the following way. In Section 2 we state
the mathematical model, while in Section 3 we deduce a numerical scheme based on
a local discontinuous Galerkin formulation combined with a θ−scheme. In Section
4 we present some numerical tests that show the good behaviour of the proposed
scheme in different situations. Finally, Section 5 is devoted to the conclusions.

2. Mathematical model. Our goal is to solve the time–dependent compressible

Reynolds equation, in order to know the evolution of the pressure distribution before
the system reaches the stationary state. Thus, we consider a rectangular domain
 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A TIME DEPENDENT LUBRICATION PROBLEM 3

Figure 2. Rigid device [12]

Ω ⊂ R2 and pose the following evolution problem: find the unknown pressure p
such that
   
∂(ph) 6apa hm Kn ∂

3

 + div ph 1 + ∇p = 6ηa (U ph) , in Ω × (0, t∞ ) ,



 ∂t ph ∂x 1

 p(x, t) = pa , for (x, t) ∈ ∂Ω × (0, t∞ ) ,





p(x, 0) = p0 (x) , for x ∈ Ω ,

(1)
where t ∈ (0, t∞ ) denotes the time variable, x = (x1 , x2 ) denotes a generic point in
Ω and the gap h is a known function on Ω × (0, t∞ ). Moreover, the parameter a
(related to the contact surface), the Knudsen number Kn [12], the feeding pressure
pa (that we take equal to the ambient pressure), the mean film thickness hm , the
viscosity ηa and the velocity U are assumed to be constant. Finally, p0 denotes the
initial pressure distribution.
As it is usual in other fluid mechanics models, we introduce the adimensional
variables:
p h x1 x2
P = , H= , X1 = , X2 = ,
pa hm `1 `2
where `1 and `2 are two characteristic dimensions of the domain. Then the partial
differential equation in (1) takes the following form:
∂(P H) ∂(P H)
− ∇ · αH 2 ∇P + βH 3 P ∇P = 0 ,
 
+ (2)
∂t ∂X1
for (X1 , X2 ) ∈ Ω
b (the adimensional domain), where

pa h2m
β= and α = 6aKn β
6ηa U L
are constant parameters deduced from the coefficients in (1). More details, including
boundary conditions, are provided in [7, 6].
In certain industrial applications, the device presents one or several slots such
that the gap, h, is described by a discontinuous function. That is the reason why
we introduce a discontinuous Galerkin formulation to solve (2). More precisely,
4 IÑIGO ARREGUI, JOSÉ JESÚS CENDÁN AND MARÍA GONZÁLEZ

we consider a local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) method introduced in [13], com-

bined with the θ−method for the time discretization. First of all, we introduce two
unknown vector functions, the pressure gradient s = ∇P and the nonlinear flux
σ = (αH 2 + βH 3 P )s. Thus, similarly to stated in [6], (2) is equivalent to searching
(P, s, σ) verifying the first order mixed problem

∂(P H) ∂(P H)


 + − div σ = 0
 ∂t ∂X1


s = ∇P (3)




σ = (αH 2 + βH 3 P ) s ,


jointly with adequate boundary and initial conditions.

3. A local discontinuous Galerkin scheme. In this section we consider a prob-

lem similar to (3) with Dirichlet boundary condition g and a (not necessarily null)
right-hand side function f . Let us introduce a positive time step ∆t > 0 and time
instants tn = n∆t (n = 0, 1, . . .). Thus, the values of a general function φ at time
tn will be denoted by φn = φ(·, tn ).
Moreover, we will consider a parameter θ ∈ [0, 1] and the following numerical
scheme. Given P 0 = p0 /pa , for each time step n = 0, 1, . . ., find (P n+1 , sn+1 , σ n+1 )
such that
 n+1 n+1
P H − P nH n

 + θ∂X1 (P n+1 H n+1 ) − θ div σ n+1
∆t






= θf n+1 + (1 − θ)f n − (1 − θ)∂X1 (P n H n ) + (1 − θ) div σ n in Ω
b,







(4)


 σ n+1 = α(H n+1 )2 + β(H n+1 )3 P n+1 sn+1 in Ω
b,




sn+1 = ∇P n+1




 in Ω
b,




 n+1
P =g on ∂ Ω
b.

We recall that (4) provides an explicit scheme for θ = 0 and an implicit one oth-
erwise. In particular, θ = 0.5 leads to the classical Crank-Nicolson scheme [19, 36]
and θ = 1 to the fully implicit Euler scheme.
In order to solve the previous problem by a local discontinuous Galerkin method,
we multiply the three first equations in (4) by adequate test functions Q, r and τ .
We also consider a triangulation Th of Ω.b Thus, for all triangles T in the mesh Th ,
we introduce the function spaces
Z
L2 (T ) = {v : T → R / v 2 < +∞} ,
T

H(div , T ) = {v ∈ L2 (T )2 / div v ∈ L2 (T )} .
 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A TIME DEPENDENT LUBRICATION PROBLEM 5

After integrating by parts, the following variational formulation is derived: Find

(P n+1 , sn+1 , σ n+1 ) ∈ L2 (T ) × H(div , T ) × H(div , T ) such that, for all T ∈ Th ,
Z Z Z
n+1 n+1 n+1 n+1


 P H Q + ∆t θ ∂ X 1 (P H ) Q + ∆t θ σ n+1 ∇Q

 T T T

 Z
σ n+1 · nT Q

−∆t θ





 ∂T

 Z
f n+1 Q

= ∆t θ






 T

 Z Z
 +∆t(1 − θ) f n Q − ∆t (1 − θ)∂X1 (P n H n ) Q



T T
Z Z
 −∆t (1 − θ) σ n ∇Q + ∆t(1 − θ) σ n · nT Q



T T



 Z

P nH n Q , ∀Q ∈ L2 (T ) ,

 +



 T

Z Z

n+1 2 n+1 3 n+1
n+1
σ n+1 · r = 0 , ∀r ∈ L2 (T )2 ,




 α (H ) + β (H ) P s · r −

 T T

Z Z Z
sn+1 · τ + P n+1 div τ − P n+1 τ · nT = 0 ,

∀τ ∈ H(div , T ) .


T T ∂T

Let k ∈ IN and
Pk (T ), the space of polynomials of degree at most k on T

Qkh = Qh ∈ L2 (Ω) b / Qh |T ∈ Pk (T ) , ∀T ∈ Th

Σh = τ h ∈ L (Ω) / τ h |T ∈ Pk (T )2 , ∀T ∈ Th
k 2 b 2

Vhk = vh ∈ L2 (Ω) b / vh |T ∈ Pk (T ) , ∀T ∈ Th .
Let k1 , k2 and k3 be nonnegative integers. Then, the discrete scheme reads:
for n = 0, 1, . . ., given (Phn , σ nh ) ∈ Qkh2 × Σkh3 , we search (sn+1 h , Phn+1 , σ n+1
h ) ∈
k1 k2 k3
Σh × Qh × Σh such that, for all T ∈ Th ,
Z Z Z
n+1 n+1 n+1 n+1


 P h H Q h + ∆t θ ∂ X1 (P h H ) Q h + ∆t θ σ n+1
h ∇Qh
T T T



 Z
b n+1

−∆t θ σ · nT Qh



 h


 ∂T

 Z
θf n+1 + (1 − θ)f n Qh


= ∆t





 T
 Z Z
−∆t (1 − θ) ∂X1 (Phn H n ) Qh − ∆t (1 − θ) σ nh ∇Qh (5)

 T T

 Z Z
b nh · nT Qh + Phn H n Qh




 +∆t (1 − θ) σ

 T T

 Z Z
n+1 3 n+1 n+1
n+1 2
σ n+1




 α (H ) + β (H ) P h sh · r h − h · rh = 0
T T



 Z Z Z

sn+1 · n+1
− Phn+1 τ h · nT = 0


 h τ h + P h div τ h
T T ∂T

for all (rh , Qh , τ h ) ∈ Σkh1 × Qhk2 × Σkh3 .

Let us denote EI and E∂ the sets of internal edges and boundary edges, respec-
tively, of the mesh. In the previous system of equations we have introduced the
6 IÑIGO ARREGUI, JOSÉ JESÚS CENDÁN AND MARÍA GONZÁLEZ

numerical flux σ
b , which is given by [6, 13, 31]:

{σ h } − ζ · [σ h ] − δ [Ph ] , if e ∈ EI
σ
b T,e = (6)
σ − δ(P − g)n , if e ∈ E∂ ,
h h T

where the average and the jump across an edge e ∈ EI (an inner edge shared by
triangles T and T 0 ) are given by:
1
{v} := (vT,e + vT 0 ,e ) , [v] := vT,e · nT + vT 0 ,e · nT 0
2
for a vector function v and
[φ] := φT,e nT + φT 0 ,e nT 0
for a scalar function φ. Moreover, the auxiliary functions δ (scalar) and ζ (vector)
are univalued on each edge e ∈ EI ∪ E∂ and must be chosen appropriately.

4. Numerical results. In this section, we present several numerical experiments

for the evolution problem considering that the (adimensional) local film thickness,
H = H(t), is known. We solve problem (5) using the method described in the
previous section. To this end, we first rewrite the problem following the notations
of Section 3.
We propose several tests. The first one consists of a problem with a known solu-
tion; it is posed on the adimensional domain Ω b and is used to study the convergence
properties of different schemes. The remaining tests are posed on the real domain
Ω and involve different air gap thicknesses.
In order to quantify the error with the known solution in Test 1, we consider the
L∞ norm as well as the energy norm |||·|||h , given by
 1/2
|||v|||h = k∇h vk2 + kδ 1/2 [v]k2[L2 (EI )]2 + kδ 1/2 vk2L2 (E∂ ) , (7)

which is well defined for functions in the space Vhk + H 1 (Ω).

Functions δ and ζ in (6) are chosen in the four tests as in [6]:

1 min (hT , hT 0 ) if x ∈ int (∂T ∩ ∂T 0 )
δ= , with h =
h 
hT if x ∈ int (∂T ∩ Γ)
 
1
ζ= .
1
All the numerical simulations have been performed with the FEniCS software pack-
age [27, 3].

Test 1: Convergence. The goal of this first test is to validate the numerical
method and compute the order of convergence. Thus, we solve the following prob-
lem:
∂(P H) ∂(P H)
  

 + − ∇ · αH 2 ∇P + βH 3 P ∇P


 ∂t ∂X1

= f (X1 , X2 , t) , (X1 , X2 ) ∈ Ω,
b t ∈ [0, 1] ,




 P =1 on ∂ Ω , t ∈ [0, 1] ,
b
 0
P =1 in Ω
b,
 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A TIME DEPENDENT LUBRICATION PROBLEM 7

where Ωb = (0, 1) × (0, 1), H(X1 , X2 ) = 2 − X1 and the right hand side function f
is chosen in order to have a known solution:
P (X1 , X2 , t) = 1 + 0.001 e−t X1 X2 (1 − X1 )(1 − X2 ) .
With the aim of studying the order of convergence, we use a sequence of uniform
meshes where each mesh has a characteristic size (denoted by hi ) half of the previous
one. Simultaneously, we divide the time step by a 2 factor. Given two consecutive
meshes of sizes h1 and h2 = h1 /2, the rate of convergence for a given variable ξ and
a given norm k · k, r(ξ), is computed at the final time step as
 
kξ−ξ k
ln kξ−ξhh1 k
2
r(ξ) = , (8)
ln(2)
where ξhi is the approximation of ξ obtained with the mesh of size hi (i = 1, 2).
Analogously, we define the rate of convergence rh (P ) using (8) with the pressure P
and the energy norm (7).
Tables 1 and 2 show the convergence results for the fully implicit Euler (θ = 1)
and Crank-Nicolson (θ = 0.5) schemes, respectively. In both cases, we have used
k2 = 1 and k1 = k3 = 0 as the degrees for the polynomials in the approximation
of the pressure P , the pressure gradient s and the nonlinear flux σ, respectively.
We can appreciate that the sequence of pressures converges with order close to one,
while the sequence of fluxes does not attain linear convergence.

∆x1 = ∆x2 ∆t kp − ph k∞ r(p) |||p − ph |||h rh (p) kσ − σ h k∞ r(σ)

1/5 0.128 5.1993E-06 – 2.5705E-05 – 4.1925E-07 –
1/10 0.064 2.1445E-06 1.2777 1.2891E-05 0.9957 2.4851E-07 0.7545
1/20 0.032 9.3242E-07 1.2016 6.6371E-06 0.9577 1.3326E-07 0.8991
1/40 0.016 3.9289E-07 1.2469 3.3664E-06 0.9793 6.8870E-08 0.9523
1/80 0.008 1.8374E-07 1.0965 1.7373E-06 0.9544 5.0225E-08 0.4555
1/160 0.004 8.9604E-08 1.0360 8.8140E-07 0.9790 3.7023E-08 0.4400
Table 1. Errors and rates of convergence for k2 = 1 and k1 =
k3 = 0. Fully implicit Euler method (θ = 1). Test 1

∆x1 = ∆x2 ∆t kp − ph k∞ r(p) |||p − ph |||h rh (p) kσ − σ h k∞ r(σ)

1/5 0.128 5.4997E-06 – 2.5597E-05 – 4.5497E-07 –
1/10 0.064 1.3872E-06 1.9872 1.1968E-05 1.0968 2.4934E-07 0.8677
1/20 0.032 5.3585E-07 1.3723 5.8561E-06 1.0312 1.3380E-07 0.8980
1/40 0.016 2.1643E-07 1.3079 2.8962E-06 1.0158 6.8838E-08 0.9588
1/80 0.008 1.2519E-07 0.7898 1.5042E-06 0.9452 3.7036E-08 0.8943
1/160 0.004 6.0052E-08 1.0598 5.8254E-07 1.3686 2.3320E-08 0.6674
Table 2. Errors and rates of convergence for k2 = 1 and k1 =
k3 = 0. Crank-Nicolson method (θ = 0.5). Test 1

These results are improved when using degrees k2 = 1 and k1 = k3 = 1 (tables 3

and 4), as we can see how the flux σ has an order of convergence close to one. Similar
results are obtained with other combinations of degrees (k2 = 3 and k1 = k3 = 1,
or k2 = 3 and k1 = k3 = 2, for example).
8 IÑIGO ARREGUI, JOSÉ JESÚS CENDÁN AND MARÍA GONZÁLEZ

∆x1 = ∆x2 ∆t kp − ph k∞ r(p) |||p − ph |||h rh (p) kσ − σ h k∞ r(σ)

1/5 0.128 5.2283E-06 – 3.3677E-05 – 1.3622E-06 –
1/10 0.064 2.1092E-06 1.3096 1.6568E-05 1.0234 8.0690E-07 0.7555
1/20 0.032 9.3481E-07 1.1740 8.3742E-06 0.9844 4.3761E-07 0.8827
1/40 0.016 3.9822E-07 1.2311 4.2101E-06 0.9921 2.3721E-07 0.8835
1/80 0.008 1.7406E-07 1.1940 2.1583E-06 0.9640 1.2435E-07 0.9318
Table 3. Errors and rates of convergence for k2 = 1 and k1 =
k3 = 1. Fully implicit Euler method (θ = 1). Test 1

∆x1 = ∆x2 ∆t kp − ph k∞ r(p) |||p − ph |||h rh (p) kσ − σ h k∞ r(σ)

1/5 0.128 5.5222E-06 – 3.3553E-05 – 1.4569E-06 –
1/10 0.064 1.3912E-06 1.9889 1.5874E-05 1.0798 8.3159E-07 0.8090
1/20 0.032 5.4606E-07 1.3492 7.7746E-06 1.0298 4.3707E-07 0.9280
1/40 0.016 2.2329E-07 1.2901 3.8408E-06 1.0174 2.3544E-07 0.8925
1/80 0.008 1.1259E-07 0.9878 1.9405E-06 0.9850 1.2540E-07 0.9088
Table 4. Errors and rates of convergence for k2 = 1 and k1 =
k3 = 1. Crank-Nicolson method (θ = 0.5). Test 1

Test 2. In this test we solve (2) in Ω = (0, 0.015) × (0, 0.015) with a gap function
given by h(x1 , x2 ) = 10−6 (2 − x1 /0.015). Moreover, α = β = 0.03 and pa = 84100
on ∂Ω.
The mesh is refined in the regions close to x1 = 0 and x1 = 0.015 in order to get
a better approximation, as we know that the pressure can suffer strong variations.
The numbers of vertices and elements are 12738 and 24895, respectively, leading to
a total number of 137791 degrees of freedom. The time interval is [0, 1] and time
discretization is done by backward Euler’s method with a time step ∆t = 0.01.
Figure 3 shows the pressure distribution at the steady state, calculated with
the fully implicit Euler scheme. A similar approximation is obtained with Crank-
Nicolson method; in both cases, a great agreement with [6] can be observed. More-
over, the evolution of the L∞ − norm of the pressure is displayed on Figure 4; more
precisely, the infinity norm of the pressure is plotted at each time step. We can
appreciate the convergence of the method to the solution of the stationary problem
presented in [6].
Test 3: A rough surface. In [2], the authors propose a test to validate an ho-
mogenization method for rough surface lubrication. Our aim is to extend it to
time-dependent problems. We consider the same domain as in Section 4 and a gap
function given by
 
−6 x1 n x1

h(x1 , x2 , t) = 10 2− − 0.125 sin 2 π − 2t , (9)
0.015 0.015
with n ∈ {1, 2, 3}, where the oscillatory component aims to simulate the roughness of
the surface. Moreover, the coefficients in Reynolds equation (2) are α = β = 0.003.
The finite element mesh has 22128 vertices and 43600 P1 elements; for k2 = 1 and
k1 = k3 = 0, the problem has 240784 degrees of freedom. Finally, the parameter of
the time discretization is θ = 0.5, corresponding to a Crank-Nicolson scheme and 10
time steps with ∆t = 0.1 are performed. Figure 5 shows the gap (9) for n = 3 (take
into account the different scales in the axes) while Figure 6 shows the computed
pressure at t = 0.25, t = 0.50, t = 0.75 and t = 1.
NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A TIME DEPENDENT LUBRICATION PROBLEM 9

Figure 3. Computed pressure at t = 0.25, t = 0.50, t = 0.75 and

t = 1.0 (from top to bottom and from left to right). Test 2

Figure 4. Evolution of the infinity norm. Fully implicit Euler

method (θ = 1). Test 2
10 IÑIGO ARREGUI, JOSÉ JESÚS CENDÁN AND MARÍA GONZÁLEZ

Figure 5. Gap function (at t = 0) in Test 3

Figure 6. Computed pressure at t = 0.25, t = 0.50, t = 0.75 and

t = 1.0 (from top to bottom and from left to right). Test 3
 NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF A TIME DEPENDENT LUBRICATION PROBLEM 11

Test 4: A discontinuous case. In this last test, we present a more realistic device
including one slot. Let Ω = (0, 0.015) × (0, 0.015) and the gap function:

(2 + 0.5t) × 10−6 , if (x1 , x2 ) ∈ S , t ∈ [0, 1]
h(x1 , x2 , t) = 4x21 − 0.06x1 + 0.00045
 + 5 × 10−7 t, otherwise,
225
where S = (0.0015, 0.0135) × (0.007125, 0.007875) denotes the slot. Thus, the gap
is discontinuous and the use of an LDG method is justified.
The mesh consists of 7164 vertices and 13950 elements; choosing k2 = 1 and
k1 = k3 = 0, we have 41850 degrees of freedom. We can observe in Figure 7 the
evolution of the pressure distribution. In particular, we can see how the region close
to x1 = 0.015 presents values below the ambient pressure that increase along time
until reaching the steady state. Only at the two corners of the domain the pressure
is under the ambient one. We can appreciate how an adequate design of the slots
makes the pressure reach lower values than in the continuous device. Moreover, the
numerical results show that the maximal pressure is slightly lower in the presence
of slots.

5. Conclusions. We present in this work a numerical scheme to simulate time

dependent fluxes governed by the compressible Reynolds equation in the presence
of discontinuities. The proposed method is an extension of the one presented in
[6] for stationary problems, and the numerical results show the good behaviour of
the numerical scheme and the convergence of the time dependent pressure to the
solution of the stationary problem.
Thanks to this methodology we can observe the evolution of the pressure be-
fore reaching the steady state, and analyze devices of complex geometries when
discontinuities are present. In a forthcoming paper we will deal with the elasto-
hydrodynamic problem, as the dependence (in particular cases) of the gap function
on the air pressure leads to a coupled problem.

Acknowledgments. The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of

Xunta de Galicia (grant ED431C 2022/47). First and second authors are partially
supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under grant PID2019-
108584RB-I00. First and third authors wish to acknowledge the support received
from the Centro de Investigación de Galicia “CITIC”, funded by Xunta de Galicia
and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund, Galicia 2014-2020
Program) by grant ED431G 2019/01.

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Received March 2023; revised March 2023; early access April 2023.
14 IÑIGO ARREGUI, JOSÉ JESÚS CENDÁN AND MARÍA GONZÁLEZ

Figure 7. Computed pressure at instants 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 and 1.0,

without slots (left) and with slots (right). Test 4