Date of Award

1983

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Abstract

In the thesis the effects of rotational flow disturbances on a body placed in an inviscid, incompressible fluid stream and in particular the case of a flat plate situated midway between two parallel planes were studied. A single vortex approaching the flat plate was first considered and then expanded to simulate the effects of pseudo-turbulence on the flat plate.;The finite-element and finite-difference numerical methods were evaluated in the thesis and arguments were made in support of using the finite-difference approach rather than the finite-element approach. The fact that the finite-difference technique was used for the particular flow problems studied in the thesis does not detract from the usefulness of finite-element methods for other flow problems particularly when further research has been made on variational methods applied to the non-linear fluid flow equations.;Theory for a "Rotational Channel Vortex" was developed and used to provide the upstream boundary conditions to the solution for the unsteady flow over a semi-infinite and then a finite flat plate. Also, new techniques were introduced in the thesis to predict the internal and external boundary conditions. It was found during the study that several methods were available to predict the boundary conditions on the flat plate but it was shown to be most important to select the appropriate method to formulate the correct boundary conditions on a body immersed in an unsteady rotational flow. The use of pseudo-turbulence models to simulate the approaching flow was also considered and it was shown that the loading on the plate could be determined using this approach. For instance the results showed that it was possible to predict the instantaneous unsteady loads on the flat plate from a particular approaching pseudo-turbulence with a particular power spectral density of the velocity fluctuations.

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