Vortical and acoustical mode coupling inside a porous tube with uniform wall suction

Abstract

This paper considers the oscillatory motion of gases inside a long porous tube of the closed-open type. In particular, the focus is placed on describing an analytical solution for the internal acoustico-vortical coupling that arises in the presence of appreciable wall suction. This unsteady field is driven by longitudinal oscillatory waves that are triggered by small unavoidable fluctuations in the wall suction speed. Under the assumption of small amplitude oscillations, the time-dependent governing equations are linearized through a regular perturbation of the dependent variables. Further application of the Helmholtz vector decomposition theorem enables us to discriminate between acoustical and vortical equations. After solving the wave equation for the acoustical contribution, the boundary-driven vortical field is considered. The method of matched-asymptotic expansions is then used to obtain a closed-form solution for the unsteady momentum equation developing from flow decomposition. An exact series expansion is also derived and shown to coincide with the numerical solution for the problem. The numerically verified end results suggest that the asymptotic scheme is capable of providing a sufficiently accurate solution. This is due to the error associated with the matched-asymptotic expansion being smaller than the error introduced in the Navier-Stokes linearization. A basis for comparison is established by examining the evolution of the oscillatory field in both space and time. The corresponding boundary-layer behavior is also characterized over a range of oscillation frequencies and wall suction velocities. In general, the current solution is found to exhibit features that are consistent with the laminar theory of periodic flows. By comparison to the Sexl profile in nonporous tubes, the critically damped solution obtained here exhibits a slightly smaller overshoot and depth of penetration. These features may be attributed to the suction effect that tends to attract the shear layers closer the wall.