DOI 10.

1007/s10891-020-02100-z

Journal of Engineering Physics and Thermophysics, Vol. 93, No. 1, January, 2020

COORDINATED BOUNDARY CONDITIONS AT THE INLET

TO THE COMPUTATIONAL DOMAIN WITH SIMULATION
OF LAMINAR FLOW PAST A PLATE USED AS AN EXAMPLE

S. A. Isaev,a,d A. D. Chornyi,b Yu. V. Zhukova,b UDC 532.517:2

D. P. Frolov,a and L. P. Yunakovc

The preference given to the Blasius profile with introduction of the vertical velocity component at the inlet to the
computational domain in comparison with the simplified approach based on the Pohlhausen profile is substantiated
using the example of laminar flow past a plate.

Keywords: laminar flow, plate, inlet velocity profiles, Navier–Stokes equations.

Up to the present time, in formulating the problems of flow past barriers in laminar and turbulent regimes, little
attention has been given to the assignment of boundary conditions at the inlet to the computational domain. Attention
was paid particularly to the conditions of continuing the solution at the outlet boundary and the conditions on the upper
continuous-flow boundary. There are current views, secured, in particular, in the manuals to packages of applied programs,
that fixed boundary conditions are quite acceptable, and they are widely recommended to users. Such conditions are assigned
with the use of the Pohlhausen profile for laminar flow and of the well-known "1/7" law for turbulent flow [1]. It is evident,
however, that these dependences are good approximations of the longitudinal flow velocity component in the boundary
layer and agree only approximately with other flow characteristics, including the vertical component of its velocity and
turbulence parameters. The introduction of the indicated dependences into consideration at certain stages of the development
of hydromechanics was connected with simplified boundary layer calculations based on integral methods [2] and thereafter
carried over automatically to accurate numerical procedures free of assumptions. It should be noted that the boundary layer
thickness (or the displacement thickness) used in integral approaches is one of the determining scale parameters of a number
of problems of hydromechanics, including those associated with flow past barriers and cavities.
Application of fixed boundary conditions in problems of flow around barriers causes jumps in the distributions of
flow parameters at the inlet to the computational domain, in particular, in the pressure field. In the majority of cases, these
jumps are ignored, because the considered barriers are located at a distance sufficiently far away from the boundary of the
computational domain and therefore do not cause undesirable flow perturbations. It is sometimes important, however, to
locate the continuous-flow boundary a short distance from the object of interest especially if it does not exert its influence on
the inlet conditions (this is valid, for example, for a cavity). It turned out feasible to get rid of pressure jumps and to bring
the inlet boundary closer to the object by assigning coordinated characteristics of flow velocity and turbulence [3]. Such
characteristics are determined in iteration solution of the inverse problem of flow around a barrier with assignment of the
boundary layer thickness at the inlet of the computational domain with the use of the parabolized procedure. It turned out to
be sufficient to calculate only the longitudinal flow velocity.
In the present work, we investigated the influence of the inlet boundary conditions in the problem on laminar flow
along a flat plate with a trench on the solution of this problem. The characteristic linear dimension of the problem was
assigned on the assumption that the trench has zero depth and longitudinal dimension d, called the caliber, and that the
Reynolds number was selected such (Re = 2500) as in the earlier calculations of flow past a spherical dimple [4–6] and a
trench [7]. The computational domain extends almost over 16 calibers in the longitudinal direction x and over 20 calibers in
a
St. Petersburg State University of Civil Aviation, 38 Pilotov Str., St. Petersburg, 196210, Russia; email: isaev3612@
yandex.ru; bA. V. Luikov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 15 P. Brovka Str., Minsk,
220072, Belarus; cD. F. Ustinov Baltic State Technical University, 1 The First Krasnoarmeiskaya Str., St. Petersburg, 190005,
Russia; dSt. Petersburg State Sea Technical University, 3 Lotsmanskaya Str., St. Petersburg, 190121, Russia. Translated from
Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 93, No. 1, pp. 138–142, January–February, 2020. Original article submitted December
22, 2018.

132 0062-0125/20/9301-0132 ©2020 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

 Fig. 1. Multiblock grid for calculating flow past a plate with a fixed (on the left) and
uniform (on the right) velocity profiles.

the vertical direction y. It is split by a nonuniform grid, containing 92 × 168 cells, with refinement of the grid near the wall (the
near-wall step is equal to 10–4). In the central part of the computational domain the longitudinal step of the mesh is selected
equal to 0.1; it is somewhat larger near the inlet boundary (of the order of 0.15) and increases up to 0.6 in the direction toward
the outlet boundary. The mesh step in the vertical direction does not exceed 0.2. The center of the trench of zero depth (x = 0)
is located at the distance 4.25 from the inlet boundary in a rectangular subregion of size 5 × 0.4 and is covered by a uniform
grid containing 43 × 32 cells (Fig. 1). The longitudinal step of the mesh is equal to 0.1. The vertical dimension of the internal
grid is coordinated with the inlet thickness of the boundary layer (δ = 0.4). The mesh step in the vertical direction increases
monotonically from 10–4 (near the wall) up to 0.08. The flow enters the computational domain through its left boundary, i.e.,
it is oriented from left to right. The conditions on the wall and outlet boundaries of the computational domain are assigned
in the usual manner. On the upper and right outlet boundaries the conditions of continuation of solution or mild boundaries
conditions (extrapolation of flow parameters onto the boundary) are set on the condition ∂2/∂n2 = 0, where n is the normal to
the boundary. No-slip conditions are assigned on the wall, i.e., the longitudinal velocity component of flow u and its vertical
component υ are equal to zero. Of greatest interest, naturally, are the boundary conditions on the inlet left boundary of the
computational domain.
As has already been noted above, most often, when calculating laminar flow along a flat plate, the Pohlhausen
profile is assigned on it [1], and a dimensionless distance from the wall η = y/δ is introduced. The longitudinal flow velocity
component u ∗ ( y ) / U ∞∗ is defined then as g(η) = 2η – 2η3 + η4 at η < 1 and as u ∗ ( y ) / U ∞∗ = 1 for η > 1. The characteristic
velocity is selected to be U∞ = 1. It is important to point out that the vertical velocity component is taken equal to zero.
However, in the case of correct solution of the problem on laminar flow along the flat plate [1], known as the Blasius
solution, u ∗ ( y ) / U ∞∗ = g1′ (η1 ), where g1(η1) is determined from the solution of the ordinary differential equation and
η1 = y ∗ (U ∗
∞ ν∗ x∗ ) = y (Re x) . The dimensionless vertical velocity component υ increases with y and tends to the
nonzero value 0.8604/ ( x Re). The coordinate x is reckoned from the beginning of the plate.
Thus, in the first case the Pohlhausen profile is assigned on the left boundary, and, in the second case, the Blasius
profile with the nonzero vertical velocity component. For comparison and estimation of the acceptability of the use of one
profile or another the problem of uniform flow of viscous fluid past a plate of finite length is solved. The inlet boundary is
shifted to a distance of 14.15 calibers from the location of the trench of zero depth, whereas the right and upper boundaries
are located at the same place where they were in the first case. The remaining grid parameters are nearly the same except for
the height of the additional rectangular region equal to 0.175. By the way, preliminary calculations showed that the boundary
layer thickness on the plate correlates with the assigned Reynolds number. Thus, at Re = 2500 at the center of the region
(x = 0) δ turns out to have a value of the order of 0.4, which precisely predetermined the choice of the inlet thickness of the
boundary layer for the solutions obtained for the computational domain of short length.
Comparison of the distributions of pressure related to the doubled velocity head presented in Fig. 2 shows that
the Pohlhausen profile, just as the profile of the 1/7 turbulent flow, yields a splash of pressure near the boundary which is

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 Fig. 2. Comparison of pressure distribution over the plate for uniform inlet flow (1) with
Blasius profiles (2) and Pohlhausen profile (3).

Fig. 3. Comparison of velocity profile of uniform inlet flow at the central point of the plate
(1) with Blasius (2) and Pohlhausen (3) profiles.

Fig. 4. Comparison of pressure distributions of inlet flow at the central point of the plate (1)
and at the point x = –2.6 (4) with Blasius (2) and Pohlhausen (3) profiles at u = 1.

Fig. 5. Comparison of velocity distributions of inlet flow at the central point of the plate (1)
and at the point x = –2.6 (4) with Blasius (2) and Pohlhausen (3) profiles at u = 1.

"dispersed" only in 8 calibers. In this case, the Blasius profile correlates satisfactorily with pressure distribution along the
plate of finite length. The profiles of the longitudinal velocity component in the central vertical section of flow (x = 0) are
closely coinciding under all inlet conditions, although some difference in the case of the Pohlhausen profile is noticeable,
however (Fig. 3). The pressure distributions across the flow (Fig. 4) at the central point of the plate differ but not greatly. The
distribution of the vertical velocity component seems to be most interesting. It should be noted that the maximum of flow
velocity at the central point of the plate correlates marvelously with the Blasius theoretical limit (υlimit = 0.0046), while the
calculated value of this velocity is υmax = 0.0045. In principle, the differences between the Blasius and Pohlhausen profiles
obtained for the velocity υmax are small. The solution for the plate of finite thickness is located in the "fork" between the
approximations for the boundary layer (Fig. 5). The friction and Nusselt number distributions along the length of the plate
immersed in flow are shown in Fig. 6. These dependences are presented in different scales allowing one to analyze them
in more detail. It is interesting that the friction distributions correlate rather well with the results for a plate of finite length,
whereas the relative heat transfer distributions clearly show the preference of the Blasius profile.

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 Fig. 6. Comparison of the distribution of friction (a) and of Nusselt number (b) over the
plate for uniform inlet flow (1) with Blasius (2) and Pohlhausen (3) profiles.

The obtained results show that the use of the Blasius profile with introduction of the vertical velocity component
is preferable in comparison with the simplified approach based on the Pohlhausen profile. The developed approach allows
one to save computational resources and makes it unnecessary to consider the entire computational domain for a plate with
a sharp edge.
Acknowledgments. This work was carried out with support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research
(Grants No. 18-58-00010 and 18-01-00210) and the Belarusian Republican Foundation for Fundamental Research (Project
No. F18R-0350.

NOTATION
d, characteristic dimension, m; f, friction related to doubled velocity head; Nu and Re, Nusselt and Reynolds
numbers; p, pressure nondimensionalized by the doubled velocity head; u and v, longitudinal and vertical velocity components
related to U∞; U∞, free flow velocity, m/s; x and y, longitudinal and vertical coordinates related to d; δ, boundary layer
thickness related to d. Indices: ∞, free flow parameters; *, dimensional quantities.

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