Question #

The leakage flow of hydraulic fluid through the gap between a piston-cylinder
arrangement may be modeled as laminar flow of fluid between infinite parallel
plates, as shown in the accompanying figure. This model offers reasonable results
for relatively small gaps. The differential equation governing the flow is
d2 u dP
μ =
d y 2 dx

with boundary conditions u ( 0 )=0∧u ( H )=0

where μ is the dynamic viscosity of the hydraulic fluid, u is the fluid velocity, and
dP
is the pressure drop and is constant. Derive the equation for the exact fluid
dx
velocities. Assume an approximate fluid velocity solution of the form

u ( y )= A ( y 4−H 3 y )

s dP Pa
[ ],
If μ=0.02 N .
m2
H=10−5 [ m ] ,
dx [ ]
=108
m

(H)
Apply the FEM technique to find the maximum velocity i.e. umax =u 2 using the
(a) Collocation, (b) Subdomain and (c) Galerkin Weighted Residual FE
Methods and compare the results.

Figure