Numerical investigation of acoustic streaming vortices in cylindrical tube arrays

Abstract Acoustic streaming has a significant effect on accelerating material mixing and flow field disturbance. To explore the characteristics of acoustic streaming in the cylindrical tube array field under the action of an acoustic wave, we derive the dimensionless acoustic streaming control equation and establish a numerical calculation model of acoustic streaming. The effects of acoustic incidence angle, acoustic Reynolds number, and Strouhal number on the acoustic streaming vortex flow field in the tube array were investigated. The numerical results show that with the change in acoustic parameters, the acoustic streaming in the tube array presents rich changes in the vortex flow field, and there are flow field phenomena such as shrinking, merging, tearing, and splitting of the vortex structure. Toward the walls of each tube, there is a strong acoustic streaming flow velocity. Besides, there is also a large streaming velocity on the interface of the adjacent acoustic streaming vortices. The inner streaming vortex structure in the acoustic boundary layer decreases with the increase in the acoustic Reynolds number, but the intensity of the inner streaming vortex and outer streaming vortex increases rapidly, and the disturbance effect of the flow field is enhanced. With the increase in the dimensionless acoustic frequency (or Strouhal number), although the structure and intensity of the inner streaming vortex decrease, the velocity gradient on the wall of the cylindrical tube increases, which is beneficial to destroy the flow boundary layer of the cylindrical tube wall and accelerate the instability of the wall flow field.