Dynamics of a Moving Body With the Hole in Its Center and Characteristics of Fluid Flow in a Small Diameter Tube

A rigid body moving with fluid in a narrow tube is expected to be developed for future engineering applications such as a capsule endoscopy, and it is also applied to some parts of industry. This paper deals with the flow characteristics around a single rigid body with a hole in its center and transient motion of the body when the body is influenced by pressure force from upstream. The model considered the width of the gap between the body and the wall is smaller than a diameter of a tube so that the force on the body can be numerically and analytically estimated as a viscous friction force. It was assumed that the flow is axisymmetric, laminar and taken to be Newtonian and incompressible. It was obtained that, with the hole in its center, the terminal velocity of the body becomes smaller than the average velocity at the inlet. Moreover, because there is a stagnation on the body, the pressure increases behind the body.Copyright © 2009 by ASME