Effects of the side walls on starting flows in ducts

This article considers the effects of the side walls on the unsteady flow of an incompressible viscous fluid in a duct of uniform cross-section. In order to show the effects of the side walls, three illustrative examples are given. They are: the starting flow in a duct of semicircular cross-section, the starting flow in a duct of rectangular cross-section and the starting flow in a duct of circular cross-section. The velocity distributions and the volume fluxes obtained for these flows are compared and it is shown that the flow in a duct of semicircular cross-section reaches steady state earlier than those for the flow in a duct of circular cross-section and for the flow in a duct of square cross-section. It is found that there are remarkable effects of the side walls of a duct on the required time to attain the asymptotic values of flow properties.