Hydrodynamics of piston-driven laminar pulsating flow: Part 1. Developing flow

•The piston-driven laminar pulsating flow in a pipe is studied.•Hydrodynamically developing flow is examined numerically.•The effect of the flow frequency depends critically upon the phase angle.•Either near-wall or off-wall flow reversals were present at higher F values.•The friction coefficient increases with an increase in the frequency.

Piston-driven pulsating flow is a specific type of pressure-driven pulsating flows. In this study, piston-driven laminar pulsating flow in a pipe is studied. This study mainly consists of two parts: developing flow and fully developed flow. In this part, hydrodynamically developing flow is examined numerically. A commercially available CFD package, FLUENT, is used in the simulations. A constant value of the time-averaged Reynolds number is considered, Re = 1000. The piston velocity is incorporated into the inlet velocity profile at the inlet. Effect of the pulsation frequency on the friction coefficient as well as axial velocity field is obtained.