The Flow of A Falling Ellipse: Numerical Method and Classification

Abstract

A modified direct-forcing immersed-boundary (IB) pressure correction method is developed to simulate the flows of a falling ellipse. The pressure correct method is used to solve the solutions of the two dimensional Navier-Stokes equations and a direct-forcing IB method is used to handle the interaction between the flow and falling ellipse. For a fixed aspect ratio of an ellipse, the types of the behavior of the falling ellipse can be classified as three pure motions: Steady falling, fluttering, tumbling, and two transition motions: Chaos, transition between steady falling and fluttering. Based on two dimensionless parameters, Reynolds number and the dimensionless moment of inertia, a Reynolds number-inertia moment phase diagram is established. The behaviors and characters of five falling regimes are described in detailed.