Unsteady force on a spherical bubble at finite Reynolds number with small fluctuations in the free-stream velocity

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Abstract
Unsteady flow over a stationary spherical bubble with small fluctuations in the free-stream velocity is considered for Reynolds number ranging from 0.1 to 200. Solutions to the Navier–Stokes equations of both steady and unsteady components are obtained using a finite-difference method and a regular perturbation scheme based on the amplitude of the fluctuations being small. The dependence of the unsteady drag on the frequency of the fluctuations is examined at finite Reynolds number. It is shown that the quasisteady drag can be represented by using the steady-state drag coefficient and the instantaneous velocity. Numerical results indicate that the unsteady force at low frequency, ω, increases linearly with ω rather than increasing linearly with ω1/2, which results from the creeping flow solution of the Stokes equation. The added-mass force at finite Reynolds number is found to be the same as in creeping flow and potential flow. The history force at finite Re is identified and carefully evaluated. The imaginary component of the history force increases linearly with ω when ω is small and decays as ω−1/2 as ω becomes large. The implication is that the history force has a much shorter memory in the time domain than predicted by the solution of the unsteady Stokes equation. Numerical results suggest that the history force, which is due to the combination of the viscous diffusion of the vorticity and the acceleration of the flow field, at low frequency is finite even at large Reynolds number.