Control of flow past a circular cylinder via a spanwise surface wire: effect of the wire scale

Flow phenomena induced by a single spanwise wire on the surface of a circular cylinder are investigated via a cinema technique of particle image velocimetry (PIV). The primary aim of this investigation is to assess the effect of the wire scale. To this end, consideration is given to wires with different diameters that are 0.5, 1.2, and 2.9% of the cylinder diameter. The Reynolds number has a subcritical value of 10,000. Compared to the thickness of the unperturbed boundary layer developing around the cylinder between 5° and 75° from the forward stagnation point, the former two wires have smaller scales and the latter has a larger scale. Two angular locations of the wire, defined with respect to the forward stagnation point of the cylinder, are found to be critical. When the wire is located at these critical angles, either the most significant extension or the contraction of the time-mean separation bubble occurs in the near wake. These critical angles depend on the wire scale: the smaller the wire, the larger the critical angle. The small-scale and large-scale wires that have diameters of 1.2 and 2.9% of the cylinder diameter induce bistable shear-layer oscillations between different separation modes when placed at their respective critical angles corresponding to maximum extension of the near-wake bubble. These oscillations have irregular time intervals that are much longer than the time scale associated with the classical Kármán instability. Moreover, the large-scale wire can either significantly attenuate or intensify the Kármán mode of vortex shedding at the critical states; in contrast, the small-scale wires do not notably alter the strength of the Kármán instability.