A hybrid vortex method for two-dimensional flow over tube bundles

Abstract

A hybrid vortex method is presented for computing flows about objects that accurately resolves the bound- ary layer details while keeping the number of free vortices at a reasonable level. The method uses a wall layer model close to the body surface and discrete vortex blobs in the free wake. Details of the wall layer implementation are presented, and results of sample calculations are compared with known analytical solu- tions and with calculations from other vortex codes. These results show that the computed boundary layer details are accurate to approximately 0.3 percent of analytical solutions while using three orders of magni- tude fewer vortices than other vortex simulations.