A numerical study of laminar separation bubbles using the Navier-Stokes equations

The flow in a two-dimensional laminar separation bubble is analyzed by means of finite-difference solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations for incompressible flow. The study was motivated by the need to analyze high-Reynolds-number flow fields having viscous regions in which the boundary-layer assumptions are questionable. The approach adopted in the present study is to analyze the flow in the immediate vicinity of the separation bubble using the Navier-Stokes equations. It is assumed that the resulting solutions can then be patched to the remainder of the flow field, which is analyzed using boundary-layer theory and inviscid-flow analysis. Some of the difficulties associated with patching the numerical solutions to the remainder of the flow field are discussed, and a suggestion for treating boundary conditions is made which would permit a separation bubble to be computed from the Navier-Stokes equations using boundary conditions from inviscid and boundary-layer solutions without accounting for interaction between individual flow regions. Numerical solutions are presented for separation bubbles having Reynolds numbers (based on momentum thickness) of the order of 50. In these numerical solutions, separation was found to occur without any evidence of the singular behaviour at separation found in solutions to the boundary-layer equations. The numerical solutions indicate that predictions of separation by boundary-layer theory are not reliable for this range of Reynolds number. The accuracy and validity of the numerical solutions are briefly examined. Included in this examination are comparisons between the Howarth solution of the boundary-layer equations for a linearly retarded freestream velocity and the corresponding numerical solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations for various Reynolds numbers.