On steady recirculating flows

Abstract

Integral constraints are derived for steady recirculating flows of nearly incompressible fluids, arising from the action of a small amount of viscosity and heat conduction. These constraints are then combined with the inviscid nondiffusive incompressible flow equations to show that two-dimensional flows containing closed nested streamlines, or three-dimensional flows with closed nested stream surfaces, are isothermal. In the former case it is shown that the vorticity is constant, and in the latter case there is an analogous result when the flow is axially symmetric and confined to axial planes. For a circular cell free convection problem, the interior temperature and vorticity are determined from the boundary conditions by an approximate integration of the boundary layer equations.