Experimental Study of Channel Driven Cavity Flow for Fluid–Structure Interaction

Abstract

An experimental setup was designed and fabricated for the channel driven cavity flow in order to provide benchmark data for validation of any numerical analysis program for solving fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problems. The channel driven cavity flow is a modification from the lid-driven cavity flow. To provide the fluid–structure interaction, the bottom face of the cavity is a deformable flat plate. All other boundaries are rigid. The fluid motion inside the cavity is driven by the flow through a narrow channel topside of the cavity. To establish suitable boundary conditions for numerical analyses of the experiment, the inlet of the channel has a given fluid velocity, while its outlet has a known pressure. Water is used as the fluid in this study. Multiple strain gages and laser displacement sensors were used to measure dynamic responses of the plate attached at the bottom of the cavity.