Study of Shear Stress on the Surface of an Obstacle Attached to Wall of a Narrow Channel

Abstract

A numerical study has been carried out to determine the fluid shear stress variation on the surface of an obstacle placed in a narrow channel. In this 2D study the dimension of channel is taken as 100mm x 5mm and flow being laminar with Reynolds Number = 200 and velocity of fluid = 0.4m/s. The dimensions of the obstacle are varied to get 15 different shapes and then the variation of wall shear stress values on their surface obtained using ANSYS 15.0 software is studied. It is found that shear stress is minimum when the obstacle flatness is highest, and minimum when the obstacle flatness is least. Few other notable observations are reckoned. This study predicts that an obstacle caught in the flow will try to attain a shape as flat as possible, if it can change its geometry