Abstract
Devices equipped with internally rotating elements are widely seen in industrial applications. In such devices, complex flow is driven by the rotating parts. Knowledge on such flow plays an important role in improving the reliability and performance of the devices. In present study, we focus on the flow driven by a pair of rotating disks within an enclosure, which models a hard disk drive (HDD). Three-dimentional structure of the unsteady fluid flow is investigated at three different planar angles of arms penetrating into the area of the rotating flow. We performed a series of numerical analysis based on Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with an open sourced platform of OpenFOAM®. The results of the numerical simulation are compared with those of experiments with particle image velocimetry (PIV). Complex features of three-dimentional flow are found in the velocities, pressure, vorticities and stream lines near the arm and shroud opening area.
