NEAR-WAKE FLOW STRUCTURE OF A CYLINDER WITH A HELICAL SURFACE PERTURBATION

The near-wake of a circular cylinder having a helical wire pattern about its surface is characterized using a technique of high-image-density velocimetry. Patterns of vorticity in three orthogonal planes show substantial influence of a wire having a diameter an order of magnitude smaller than the cylinder diameter. The distinctive patterns of vorticity in these three planes are associated with lack of formation of large-scale Kármán-like clusters of vorticity (ω_z) in the near-wake region of the cylinder. The instantaneous structure of the separating spanwise vorticity (ω_z) layers on either side of the cylinder involve small-scale concentrations of vorticity analogous to the well-known Kelvin–Helmholtz vortices from a smooth cylinder. Moreover, a dual vorticity layer, i.e., two adjacent layers of like vorticity (ω_z), can form from one side of the cylinder. Along the span of the cylinder, distributions of instantaneous velocity and transverse vorticity (ω_y) show a spatially periodic sequence of wake-like patterns, each of which has features in common with the very near-wake of a two-dimensional bluff body, including a large velocity defect bounded by vorticity layers with embedded small-scale vorticity concentrations. In the cross-flow plane of the wake, patterns of streamwise vorticity (ω_x) show small-scale, counter-rotating pairs of vorticity concentrations (ω_x) emanating from the inclined helical perturbation, rather than isolated concentrations of vorticity of like sign, which would indicate single streamwise vortices. All of the aforementioned patterns of small-scale vorticity concentrations are scaled according to the local wake width/local pitch of the helical wire pattern in the respective plane of observation.