Numerical predictions for unsteady viscous flow past an array of cylinders

The unsteady two-dimensional flow around an array of circular cylinders submerged in a uniform onset flow is analysed. The fluid is taken to be viscous and incompressible. The array of cylinders consists of two horizontal rows extending to infinity in the upstream and downstream directions. The centre-to-centre distance between adjacent cylinders is fixed at three diameters, and the rows are staggered. Advantage is taken of spatially periodic boundary conditions in the flow direction. This reduces the computational domain to a rectangular region surrounding a single circular cylinder. Two cases, for Reynolds numbers of 1000 and 10,000, are presented.     

双圆柱斜置排列时下游圆柱压力分布和振荡频率的实验研究

当两个圆柱斜置排列并靠得较近时,绕流下游圆柱的流动明显地不同于单一圆柱.本文研究了下游圆柱压力分布受到的影响,并着重于用FFT来分析圆柱表面某些特征点上的压力频谱,研究频谱与圆柱之间的相对距离和位置的关系.当圆柱间距较远时,压力振荡的频率与单圆柱卡门涡节的频率相接近,随着横向间距的接近,频率逐渐降低,然而当两圆柱十分接近时,外侧压力振荡的频率继续降低,但圆柱内侧压力振荡的频率却突然提高,出现了一个圆柱体两侧作用有不同频率压力的情况.     

Numerical predictions of low Reynolds number flows over two tandem circular cylinders

Flows over two tandem cylinders were analysed using the newly developed collocated unstructured computational fluid dynamics (CUCFD) code, which is capable of handling complex geometries. A Reynolds number of 100, based on cylinder diameter, was used to ensure that the flow remained laminar. The validity of the code was tested through comparisons with benchmark solutions for flow in a lid‐friven cavity and flow around a single cylinder. For the tandem cylinder flow, also mesh convergence was demonstrated, to within a couple of percent for the RMS lift coefficient. The mean and fluctuating lift and drag coefficients were recorded for centre‐to‐centre cylinder spacings between 2 and 10 diameters. A critical cylinder spacing was found between 3.75 and 4 diameters. The fluctuating forces jumped appreciably at the critical spacing. It was found that there exists only one reattachment and one separation point on the downstream cylinder for spacings greater than the critical spacing. The mean and the fluctuating surface pressure distributions were compared as a function of the cylinder spacing. The mean and the fluctuating pressures were significantly different between the upstream and the downstream cylinders. These pressures also differed with the cylinder spacing. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wall proximity effects on the effectiveness of upstream control rod

Two dimensional flow over a circular cylinder with an upstream control rod of same diameter is simulated in unbound condition and in wall bounded conditions. The cylinders are placed at various heights from the wall and the inter-distance between cylinders is also varied. The control rod is subjected to different rotation rates. It is found that, in unbound condition, rotating the control rod decreases the critical pitch length (S/D_cr) and increases the drag and Strouhal number of the main cylinder. In presence of plane wall, the shielding provided by the separated shear layers from the control rod in cavity regime is deteriorated due to deflection of shear layers which results in higher drag and large fluctuation of lift coefficient. However, in wake impingement regime, the binary vortices from the control rod are weakened due to diffusion of vorticity and hence, the main cylinder experiences a lower drag and small lift fluctuations than that of unbound condition. The critical height of vortex suppression (H/D_cr) is higher in cavity regime than that of wake impingement regime due to the single extended-bluff body like configuration. The rotation of control rod energizes the wall boundary layer and increases the critical height of vortex suppression. Increasing the rotational rate of control rod decreases the drag force and reduces the amplitude of lift fluctuation. Analysis of the wall shear stress distribution reveals that it suffers a sudden drop at moderate height where the normal Karman vortex shedding changes to irregular shedding consisting of single row of negative vortices. Modal structures obtained from dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) reveal that the flow structures behind the main cylinder are suppressed due to wall and the flow is dominated by the wake of control rod.     

Vortex Induced Vibrations of a Pair of Cylinders at Reynolds Number 1000

Vortex induced vibrations of two equal-sized cylinders in tandem and staggered arrangement placed in uniform incompressible flow is studied. A stabilized finite element formulation is utilized to solve the governing equations. The Reynolds number for these 2D simulations is 1000. The cylinders are separated by 5.5 times the cylinder diameter in the streamwise direction. For the staggered arrangement, the cross-flow spacing between the two cylinders is 0.7 times the cylinder diameter. In this arrangement, the downstream cylinder lies in the wake of the upstream one and therefore experiences an unsteady inflow. The wake looses its temporal periodicity, beyond a few diameters downstream of the front cylinder. The upstream cylinder responds as an isolated single cylinder while the downstream one undergoes disorganized motion. Soft-lock-in is observed in almost all the cases.     

侧柱与串列双柱绕流之间的干扰

本文给出了关于串列双柱与创柱间流动干扰的实验研究结果。当三个圆柱排成等边三角形并靠得很近时，由于三圆柱间强烈的缝隙流动，大大地改变了绕流其中的串列双圆柱的流态。特别，当三圆柱中心距等于二倍圆柱直径时，在串列双柱的前、后柱之间形成了强烈的偏斜的缝隙流，出现了独特的压力分布以及要比单柱高出三倍以上的旋涡脱落频率。     

Flow-induced oscillation of two circular cylinders in tandem arrangement at low Re

Results are presented for flow-induced vibrations of a pair of equal-sized circular cylinders of low nondimensional mass (m^*=10) in a tandem arrangement. The cylinders are free to oscillate both in streamwise and transverse directions. The Reynolds number, based on the free-stream speed and the diameter of the cylinders, D is 100 and the centre-to-centre distance between the cylinders is 5.5D. The computations are carried out for reduced velocities in the range 2≤U^*≤15. The structural damping is set to zero for enabling maximum amplitudes of oscillation. A stabilized finite element method is utilized to carry out the computations in two dimensions. Even though the response of the upstream cylinder is found to be qualitatively similar to that of an isolated cylinder, the presence of a downstream cylinder is found to have significant effect on the behaviour of the upstream cylinder. The downstream cylinder undergoes very large amplitude of oscillations in both transverse and streamwise directions. The maximum amplitude of transverse response of the downstream cylinder is quite similar to that of a single cylinder at higher Re beyond the laminar regime. Lock-in and hysteresis are observed for both upstream and downstream cylinders. The downstream cylinder undergoes large amplitude oscillations even beyond the lock-in state. The phase between transverse oscillations and lift force suffers a 180 jump for both the cylinders almost in the middle of the synchronization regime. The phase between the transverse response of the two cylinders is also studied. Complex flow patterns are observed in the wake of the freely vibrating cylinders. Based on the phase difference and the flow patterns, the entire flow range is divided into five sub-regions.     

Flow regimes and frequency selection of a cylinder oscillating in an upstream cylinder wake

This paper describes flow around a pair of cylinders in tandem arrangement with a downstream cylinder being fixed or forced to oscillate transversely. A sinusoidal parietal velocity is applied to simulate cylinder oscillation. Time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations are solved using finite element method. It is shown that there exist two distinct flow regimes: ‘vortex suppression regime’ and ‘vortex formation regime’. Averaged vortex lengths between the two cylinders, pressure variations at back and front stagnant points as well as circumferential pressure profiles of the downstream cylinder are found completely different in the two regimes and, thus, can be used to identify the flow regimes. It is shown that frequency selection in the wake of the oscillating cylinder is a result of non-linear interaction among vortex wakes upstream and downstream of the second cylinder and its forced oscillation. Increasing cylinder spacing results in a stronger oscillatory incident flow upstream of the second cylinder and, thus, a smaller synchronization zone.     

Computational modeling of vortex shedding in water cooling of 3D integrated electronics

This work aims at understanding the flow and heat transfer through a microcavity populated with micropins, representing a layer of a 3D integrated electronic chip stack with integrated cooling. The resulting vortex shedding behavior and its effect on the heat removal is analyzed in the Reynolds number (Re) range from 60 to 450. The lateral confinement, expressed as the ratio of diameter to lateral distance between two cylinders’ centers, is varied between 0.1 and 0.5; the longitudinal confinement (diameter to longitudinal distance between two cylinders’ centers) between 0.25 and 0.5; and vertical confinement (diameter to microcavity height ratio) between 0.1 and 0.5. For a single pin, as the lateral confinement is increased, the Strouhal number (St) and the shedding frequency increase by up to 100%. The thermal performance represented by the spatiotemporal averaged Nusselt number (Nu), based on the average pin surface and fluid temperatures, is also enhanced by over 30%. A direct relationship between Nu and the shedding frequency was found. For a row of pins, Nu in the vortex shedding regime was found to be up to 300% higher compared to the steady case. A decrease in the longitudinal confinement, tested with rows of pins (either with 50 or 25 pins) in the streamwise direction, led to an upstream migration of the vortex shedding location and in more homogeneous but higher wall temperatures. This coincided with a drastic reduction of pressure losses and a 30% Nu enhancement for the same pumping power. Finally, the vertical confinement is also investigated with 3D simulations around a single cylinder. With increasing Re and vertical confinement, the wake becomes strongly three-dimensional. For a given Re, the increase of vertical confinement naturally shows a suppression or even a complete elimination of the vortex shedding due to a strong end-wall effect. Our results shed light on the effects of confinement on vortex shedding and related heat transfer in the integrated cooling of 3D chip stacks.     

Numerical simulation of laminar flow and heat transfer over banks of staggered cylinders

A study is conducted to investigate forced convective flow and heat transfer over a bank of staggered cylinders. Using a novel numerical formulation based on a non‐orthogonal collocated grid in a physical plane, the effects of Reynolds number and cylinder spacing on the flow and heat transfer behaviour are systematically studied. It is observed that both the Reynolds number and cylinder spacing influence the recirculatory vortex formation and growth in the region between the cylinders; in turn, the rates of heat transfer between the fluid and the staggered cylinders are affected. As the cylinder spacing decreases, the size and length of eddies reduce. For sufficiently small spacings, eddy formation is completely suppressed even at high Reynolds number. Pressure drop and Nusselt number predictions based on numerical study are in excellent agreement with available correlations. The study provides useful insight on the detailed flow and heat transfer phenomena for the case of a bank of staggered cylinders. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interference effect of an upstream larger cylinder on the lock-in vibration of a flexibly mounted circular cylinder

Experiments have been carried out to investigate the flow-induced vibration response of a flexibly mounted circular cylinder located in the vicinity of a larger cylinder and subjected to cross-flow. The interfering larger cylinder was placed upstream and had a diameter twice that of the vibrating cylinder. Complex interaction was observed between the flow over the two cylinders. The vibration responses of the flexible cylinder were classified into different regimes according to the relative positions of the two cylinders. In the-side-by-side arrangement and the tandem or near-tandem arrangement, flow-induced vibrations of the flexible cylinder were greatly suppressed. In the staggered arrangement which covered a large portion of the relative cylinder positions being investigated, vibrations of the smaller cylinder were greatly amplified. The vibration response curves were also largely modified with a broadening of the lock-in resonance range. A shift of the peak reduced velocity for maximum vibration response was also found. Flow visualizations and wake velocity measurements suggested that the modifications of the vibration responses were related to the presence or absence of constant or intermittent flow through the gap region between the two cylinders. The proposed mechanisms of flow interactions and the resulting vibration response characteristics could explain previous observations on flow-induced vibrations of two equal-sized circular cylinders reported in the literature.     

基于浸入边界-格子Boltzmann通量求解法的椭圆柱流动特性分析

基于浸入边界-格子Boltzmann通量求解法,开展了雷诺数Re=100不同几何参数下单椭圆柱及串列双椭圆柱绕流流场与受力特性对比研究。结果表明,随长短轴比值的增加,单椭圆柱绕流阻力系数先减小后缓慢上升,最大升力系数则随长短轴比值的增大而减小;尾迹流动状态从周期性脱落涡到稳定对称涡。间距是影响串列圆柱及椭圆柱流场流动状态的主要因素,间距较小时,串列圆柱绕流呈周期性脱落涡状态,而椭圆柱则为稳定流动;随着间距增加,上下游圆柱及椭圆柱尾迹均出现卡门涡街现象,且串列椭圆柱临界间距大于串列圆柱。串列椭圆柱阻力的变化规律与圆柱的基本相同,上游平均阻力大于下游阻力;上游椭圆柱阻力随着间距的变大先减小,下游随间距的变大而增加,当间距达到临界间距时上下游阻力跃升,随后出现小幅度波动再逐渐增加,并趋近于相同长短轴比值下单柱体绕流的阻力。     

Flow of wormlike micelle solutions past a confined circular cylinder

In this paper, we present the results of an investigation into the flow of a series of viscoelastic wormlike micelle solutions past a confined circular cylinder. Although this benchmark flow has been studied in great detail for polymer solutions, this paper reports the first experiments to use a viscoelastic wormlike micelle solution as the test fluid. The flow kinematics, stability and pressure drop were examined for two different wormlike micelle solutions over a wide range of Deborah numbers and cylinder to channel aspect ratios. A combination of particle image velocimetry and pressure drop measurements were used to characterize the flow kinematics, while flow-induced birefringence measurements were used to measure the micelle deformation and alignment in the flow. The pressure drop was found to decrease initially due to the shear thinning of the test fluid before increasing at higher flow rates as elastic effects begin to dominate the flow. Above a critical Deborah number, an elastic instability was observed for just one of the test fluids studied, the other remained stable for all Deborah number tested. Flow-induced birefringence and velocimetry measurements showed that observed instability originates in the extensional flow in the wake of the cylinder and appears not as periodic counter-rotating vortices as has been observed in the flow of polymer solutions past circular cylinders, but as a chaotic rupture event in the wake of the cylinder that propagates axially along the cylinder. Reducing the cylinder to channel aspect ratio and the degree of shearing introduced by the channel walls had a weak impact on the stability of the flow. These measurements, when taken in conjunction with previous work on flow of wormlike micelle solutions through a periodic array of cylinders, definitively show that the instability can be attributed to a breakdown of the wormlike micelle solutions in the extensional flow in the wake of the cylinder.     

Unsteady characteristics of low-Re flow past two tandem cylinders

This study investigated the two-dimensional flow past two tandem circular or square cylinders at Re = 100 and D / d = 4–10, where D is the center-to-center distance and d is the cylinder diameter. Numerical simulation was performed to comparably study the effect of cylinder geometry and spacing on the aerodynamic characteristics, unsteady flow patterns, time-averaged flow characteristics and flow unsteadiness. We also provided the first global linear stability analysis and sensitivity analysis on the physical problem for the potential application of flow control. The objective of this work is to quantitatively identify the effect of the cylinder geometry and spacing on the characteristic quantities. Numerical results reveal that there is wake flow transition for both geometries depending on the spacing. The characteristic quantities, including the time-averaged and fluctuating streamwise velocity and pressure coefficient, are quite similar to that of the single cylinder case for the upstream cylinder, while an entirely different variation pattern is observed for the downstream cylinder. The global linear stability analysis shows that the spatial structure of perturbation is mainly observed in the wake of the downstream cylinder for small spacing, while moves upstream with reduced size and is also observed after the upstream cylinder for large spacing. The sensitivity analysis reflects that the temporal growth rate of perturbation is the most sensitive to the near-wake flow of downstream cylinder for small spacing and upstream cylinder for large spacing.     

Wake development in staggered short cylinder arrays within a channel

Staggered arrays of short cylinders, known as pin?Cfins, are commonly used as a heat exchange method in many applications such as cooling electronic equipment and cooling the trailing edge of gas turbine airfoils. This study investigates the near wake flow as it develops through arrays of staggered pin fins. The height-to-diameter ratio was unity while the transverse spacing was kept constant at two cylinder diameters. The streamwise spacing was varied between 3.46 and 1.73 cylinder diameters. For each geometric arrangement, experiments were conducted at Reynolds numbers of 3.0e3 and 2.0e4 based on cylinder diameter and velocity through the minimum flow area of the array. Time-resolved flowfield measurements provided insight into the dependence of row position, Reynolds number, and streamwise spacing. Decreasing streamwise spacing resulted in increased Strouhal number as the near wake length scales were confined. In the first row of the bundle, low Reynolds number flows were mainly shear-layer-driven while high Reynolds number flows were dominated by periodic vortex shedding. The level of velocity fluctuations increased for cases having stronger vortex shedding. The effect of streamwise spacing was most apparent in the reduction of velocity fluctuations in the wake when the spacing between rows was reduced from 2.60 diameters to 2.16 diameters.     

串列双锥柱绕流流动特性的大涡模拟研究

利用大涡模拟研究了雷诺数Re = 3900下串列双锥柱在间距比L/D_m = 2 ~ 10下的升阻力特性及三维流动结构. 研究发现: 上游锥柱在后方形成的两个展向不对称回流区, 使其后方压力分布不对称. 上游锥柱发展的上洗、下洗和侧面剪切层作用在下游锥柱的附着点位置不同是上游和下游锥柱时均阻力系数和脉动升力系数变化的主要原因, 串列双锥柱间流动结构随间距比变化可分为三种状态: 剪切层包裹状态, 过渡状态及尾流撞击状态. 剪切层包裹状态. 上游锥柱的自由端主导来流在下游锥柱迎风面影响范围广, 上游锥柱剪切层完全包裹住下游锥柱, 从而抑制下游锥柱后方回流区形成, 导致下游锥柱时均阻力系数降低; 尾流撞击状态; 上游锥柱尾流得到充分发展, 其回流区大小随间距比增大不再发生变化, 上游锥柱尾流出现周期性脱落, 撞击在下游锥柱表面, 从而使脉动升力系数大幅增加, 最大脉动升力系数较单直圆柱提升约20.7倍; 过渡状态, 此时时均阻力系数和脉动升力系数均会较剪切层包裹状态增加. 该研究可以为风力俘能结构群列阵布局提供理论支持.      

Effect of mass transfer on flow across a staggered tube bundle

Over a range of Reynolds numbers from 0·6 × 10⁵ to 1·75 × 10⁵ tests were made on a seven rows deep tube bank. These tests were made using a specially instrumented porous cylinder which could be located in any position within the bank. Mass transfer through the porous surface simulating the condensation process in a surface condenser, was applied, and its effect on local parameters investigated. The distribution of static pressure and skin friction was determined around tubes in different rows in the bank. From these measurements, the pressure drag and friction drag were estimated. The total pressure drop across the bank was also measured.

Results showed that, for typical steam condenser loadings, the contribution of the pressure drag to the total drag does not change appreciably with suction. However, the skin friction contribution does change considerably with suction.     

Nonintrusive measurements of the boundary layer developing on a single and two circular cylinders

 The boundary layers developing on a single and two tandem circular cylinders were examined using multiple hot-film sensor arrays for Re=2.4–5.1×10⁴. Hot-wire and surface pressure measurements, and smoke-wire flow visualization were also made to better understand the flow pattern and the evolution of the vortex street. The results show that, by use of the sensor arrays in conjunction with a bank of constant-temperature anemometers, (i) the effects of the upstream cylinder on the boundary layer developing on the downstream cylinder, (ii) the frequency of the vortex shedding, and (iii) the locations of flow separation and reattachment can be determined non-intrusively and simultaneously. These measurement capabilities will provide a practical means for the characterization and manipulation of unsteady flow phenomena. Received: 27 October 1996 / Accepted: 13 February 1997     

On the origin of wake-induced vibration in two tandem circular cylinders at low Reynolds number

We numerically investigate flow-induced vibrations of circular cylinders arranged in a tandem configuration at low Reynolds number. Results on the coupled force dynamics are presented for an isolated cylinder and a pair of rigid cylinders in a tandem configuration where the downstream cylinder is elastically mounted and free to vibrate transversely. Contrary to turbulent flows at high Reynolds number, low frequency component with respect to shedding frequency is absent in laminar flows. Appearance and disappearance of the vorticity regions due to reverse flow on the aft part of the vibrating cylinder is characterized by a higher harmonic in transverse load, which is nearly three times of the shedding frequency. We next analyze the significance of pressure and viscous forces in the composition of lift and their phase relations with respect to the structural velocity. For both the isolated and tandem vibrating cylinders, the pressure force supplies energy to the moving cylinder, whereas the viscous force dissipates the energy. Close to the excitation frequency ratio of one, the ratio of transverse viscous force to pressure force is found to be maximum. In addition, movement of stagnation point plays a major role on the force dynamics of both configurations. In the case of isolated cylinder, displacement of the stagnation point is nearly in-phase with the velocity. During vortex-body interaction, the phase difference between the transverse pressure force and velocity and the location of stagnation point determines the loads acting on the cylinder. When the transverse pressure force is in-phase with velocity, the stagnation point moves to higher suction region of the cylinder. In the case of the tandem cylinder arrangement, upstream vortex shifts the stagnation point on the downstream cylinder to the low suction region. Thus a larger lift force is observed for the downstream cylinder as compared to the vibrating isolated cylinder. Phase difference between the transverse load and the velocity of the downstream cylinder determines the extent of upstream wake interaction with the downstream cylinder. When the cylinder velocity is in-phase with the transverse pressure load component, interaction of wake vortex with the downstream cylinder is lower compared to other cases considered in this study. We extend our parametric study of tandem cylinders for the longitudinal center-to-center spacing ranging from 4 to 10 diameter.     

Flow structure around two finite circular cylinders located in an atmospheric boundary layer: side-by-side arrangement

The flow structure around the free-end region of two adjacent finite circular cylinders embedded in an atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) was investigated experimentally. The experiments were carried out in a closed-return-type subsonic wind tunnel, in which two finite cylinders with an aspect ratio of 6 were mounted vertically on a flat plate in a side-by-side arrangement. The Reynolds number based on the cylinder diameter was about Re=2×10⁴. Systems with gap ratios (i.e., center-to-center distance/cylinder diameter) in the range 1.0–2.0 were investigated. A hot-wire anemometer was employed to measure the wake velocity, and the mean pressure distribution on the cylinder surface was also measured. The flow past two finite cylinders was found to have a complicated three-dimensional wake structure in the region near the free ends. As the gap ratio increases, regular vortex-shedding becomes dominant, but the length of the vortex formation region decreases. The pressure distribution and flow structure around two cylinders were found to differ substantially from the behavior of a two-dimensional circular cylinder due to mutual interference. The three-dimensional flow structure seems to originate from the strong entrainment of irrotational fluids caused by the downwash counter-rotating vortices separated from the finite cylinder (FC) free ends.