Numerical simulation of Reynolds number effects on velocity shear flow around a circular cylinder

Three-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) are performed to investigate the shear effects on flow around a circular cylinder at Reynolds numbers of Re=60–1000. The shear parameter, β, which is based on the velocity gradient, cylinder diameter and upstream mean velocity at the center plane of the cylinder, varies from 0 to 0.30. Variations of Strouhal number, drag and lift coefficients, and unsteady wake structures with shear parameter are studied, along with their dependence on Reynolds number. The presented simulation provides detailed information for the flow field around a circular cylinder in shear flow. This study shows that the Strouhal number exhibits no significant variation with shear parameter. The stagnation point moves to the high-velocity side almost linearly with shear parameter, and this result mainly influences the aerodynamic forces acting on a circular cylinder in shear flow. Both the Reynolds number and shear parameter influence the movement of the stagnation point and separation point. Mode A wake instability is suppressed into parallel vortex shedding mode at a certain shear parameter. The lift force increases with increasing shear parameter and acts from the high-velocity side to the low-velocity side. In addition, a simple method to estimate the lift force coefficient in shear flow is provided.     

Coherent and turbulent process analysis in the flow past a circular cylinder at high Reynolds number

This article presents an experimental study of the turbulent flow past a circular cylinder at high Reynolds number by means of advanced optical measurements techniques. Following previous studies using standard PIV and stereoscopic PIV (3C PIV), TRPIV and 3C-TRPIV have been employed in low subsonic wind tunnel environment. The database consisting of statistical and time-dependent fields aims at providing a physical analysis of the coherent and turbulent part, as well as a proper basis for validation and improvement of recent turbulence modelling approaches for strongly detached flow at high Reynolds number. As the nonlinear interaction between the coherent and turbulent dynamics have to be taken into account in a model, particular attention is paid to a decomposition of the flow into a coherent and a turbulent part, and to the analysis of their dynamics. This is achieved both using phase averaging and Proper Orthogonal Decomposition. For phase averaging, the two first POD coefficients are used for the evaluation of the vortex shedding phase angle. Furthermore, selected results of a Detached Eddy Simulation which had been validated by means of the experiment, are also presented to contribute to the physical analysis. The present study's experimental data resolved in space and time allow the confirmation of the conditional averaging for the turbulent stresses evaluation, by alleviating their overestimation due to phase jitter that occurs between the trigger signal and the velocity, when the phase angle is determined from a wall pressure signal. A more accurate physical analysis of the flow is achieved, particularly regarding the occurrence of irregular vortex shedding.     

Computation of unsteady viscous flow around a locally flexible airfoil at low Reynolds number

A numerical method for fluid–structure interaction is presented for the analysis of unsteady viscous flow over a locally flexible airfoil. The Navier–Stokes equations are solved by ALE–CBS algorithm, coupling with a structural solver with large deformation. Following the validation of the method, a numerical example for the flight of micro-air vehicles at low Reynolds number is chosen for the computation. The coupling effect of flexible structure with different elastic stiffness on aerodynamic performance is demonstrated. A noticeable camber effect is induced by the deflection of the structure as the elastic stiffness of the structure goes smaller. Moreover, when the vibrating frequencies of the structure with smaller elastic stiffness have a close correlation with the shedding frequencies, the positive impact of the vibration of local flexible surface on the lift of the airfoil is highlighted, which results from the formation of the coherent vortices.     

A three-dimensional simulation of a steady approach flow past a circular cylinder at low Reynolds number

The three-dimensional (3D) unsteady viscous wake of a circular cylinder exposed to a steady approach flow is calculated using a fractional-step finite-difference/spectral-element method. The calculated flow fields at Reynolds numbers of 100 (2D) and 200 (3D) are examined in detail. The flow field at Re = 100 is 2D as expected, while the flow field at Re = 200 has distinct 3D features, with spanwise wavelengths of about 3.75 cylinder diameters. The calculated results produce drag and lift coefficients and Strouhal numbers that agree extremely well with the experimental values. These 3D values at Re = 200 are in better agreement with experimental values than the results of a 2D calculation at Re = 200, which is expected. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An experimental investigation of viscoplastic flow past a circular cylinder at high Reynolds numbers

Summary The purpose of this work was to examine the high speed flow of viscoplastic fluid past a circular cylinder. Included in this work were measurements of the time-averaged wake length and the pressure and temperature distributions over the cylinder surface. The time-averaged wake length was very characteristic of viscoplasticity: The viscoplastic flow showed quite longer wake length than theNewtonian flow under certain conditions. It was found that there were the regions of stationary fluids adjacent to a cylinder and that they obstructed the heat transfer between the cylinder and fluid very much.

---

Zusammenfassung Die vorliegende Arbeit befaßt sich mit der Untersuchung der Umströmung eines Kreiszylinders durch eine visko-plastische Flüssigkeit mit hoher Geschwindigkeit. Hierin eingeschlossen sind die Messung der mittleren Längenausdehnung des Totwasser-Gebiets sowie der Druck- und Temperaturverteilung über die Zylinderoberfläche. Die zeitlich gemittelte Längserstreckung des Totwasser-Gebiets stellt sich als eine für das visko-plastische Fließen charakteristische Größe heraus: Sie kommt erheblich größer heraus als fürnewtonsche Flüssigkeiten unter vergleichbaren Bedingungen. Man findet weiterhin am Zylinder anliegende stationäre Flüssigkeitsbereiche, welche die Wärmeübertragung zwischen Zylinder und Flüssigkeit sehr hemmen.

---

---

With 16 figures and 1 table     

Numerical investigation of fluid flow past circular cylinder with multiple control rods at low Reynolds number

Laminar flow past a circular cylinder with multiple small-diameter control rods is numerically investigated in this study. The effects of rod-to-cylinder spacing ratio, rod and cylinder diameter ratio, cylinder Reynolds number, number of control rods and angle of attack on the hydrodynamics of the main circular cylinder are investigated. Four different flow regimes are identified based on the mechanism of lift and drag reduction. The range of rod-to-cylinder spacing ratio where significant force suppression can be achieved is found to become narrower as the Reynolds number increases in the laminar regime, but is insensitive to the diameter ratio. The numerical results for the case with six identical small control rods at Re=200 show that the lift fluctuation on the main cylinder can be suppressed significantly for a large range of spacing ratio and various diameter ratios, while the drag reduction on the main cylinder is also achieved simultaneously. The six-control-rod arrangement has shown better performance in flow control than the arrangements with less control rods, especially in terms of force reduction at various angles of attack.     

Heat transfer and flow around a circular cylinder with tripping-wires

An experimental study was conducted on the heat transfer under the condition of constant heat flux and the flow around a circular cylinder with tripping-wires, which were affixed at ± 65° from the forward stagnation point on the cylinder surface. The testing fluid was air and the Reynolds number Red, based on the cylinder diameter, ranged from 1.2 × 10⁴ to 5.2×10⁴. Especially investigated are the interactions between the heat transfer and the flow in the critical flow state, in relation to the static pressure distribution along the cylinder surface and the mean and turbulent fluctuating velocities in the wake. It is found that the heat transfer from the cylinder to the cross flow is in very close connection with the width of near wake.     

The turbulent flow field around a circular cylinder

The flow field around a circular cylinder mounted vertically on a flat bottom has been investigated experimentally. This type of flow occurs in several technical applications, e.g. local scouring around bridge piers. Hydrogen bubble flow visualization was carried out for Reynolds numbers ranging from 6,600 to 65,000. The main flow characteristic upstream of the cylinder is a system of horse-shoe vortices which are shed quasi-periodically. The number of vortices depends on Reynolds number. The vortex system was found to be independent of the vortices that are shed in the wake of the cylinder. The topology of the separated flow contains several separation and attachment lines which are Reynolds number dependent. In the wake region different flow patterns exist for each constant Reynolds number.     

Numerical investigation on flow around circular cylinders in tandem arrangement at a subcritical Reynolds number

Three-dimensional fluid computations have been performed to investigate the flows around two circular cylinders in tandem arrangements at a subcritical Reynolds number, Re=2.2×10⁴. The center-to-center space between the cylinders was varied from twice the cylinder diameter to five times that, and the flows and fluid-dynamic forces obtained from the simulations are compared with the experimental results reported in the literature. Special attention is paid to the characteristics of the vortices shed from the upstream cylinder such as the convection, the impingement onto the downstream cylinder and the interaction with the vortices from the downstream cylinder. The effects of the vortices from the upstream cylinder on the fluid-dynamic forces acting on the downstream cylinder are discussed.     

Effect of magnetic Reynolds number on the two‐dimensional hydromagnetic flow around a cylinder

Numerical experiments have been conducted to study the effect of magnetic Reynolds number on the steady, two‐dimensional, viscous, incompressible and electrically conducting flow around a circular cylinder. Besides usual Reynolds number Re, the flow is governed by the magnetic Reynolds number R_m and Alfvén number β. The flow and magnetic field are uniform and parallel at large distances from the cylinder. The pressure Poisson equation is solved to find the pressure fields in the entire flow region. The effects of the magnetic field and electrical conductivity on the recirculation bubble, drag coefficient, standing vortex and pressure are presented and discussed. For low interaction parameter (N<1), the suppression of the flow‐separation is nearly independent of the conductivity of the fluid, whereas for large interaction parameters, the conductivity of the fluid strongly influences the control of flow‐separation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Non-uniform suction control of flow around a circular cylinder

In the present study, numerical investigations were performed with optimisation to determine efficient non-uniform suction profiles to control the flow around a circular cylinder in the range of Reynolds numbers 4 < Re < 188.5. Several objectives were explored, namely the minimisation of the separation angle, total drag, and pressure drag. This was in an effort to determine the relationships between the characteristics of the uncontrolled flow and the parameters of the optimised suction control. A variety of non-uniform suction configurations were implemented and compared to the benchmark performance of uniform suction. It was determined that the best non-uniform suction profiles consisted of a distribution with a single locus and compact support. The centre of suction on the cylinder surface for the optimised control, and the quantity of suction necessary to achieve each objective, varied substantially with Reynolds number and also with the separation angle of the uncontrolled flows. These followed predictable relationships. Surprisingly, the location of optimised suction to eliminate separation did not follow the separation point as it moved with Re, but rather it moved in opposition to it towards the trailing edge of the cylinder. Non-uniform suction profiles were much more efficient at eliminating boundary layer separation, requiring the removal of less than half the volume of fluid as uniform control to achieve the same objective. Regardless of the method of control, less net suction was needed to minimise total drag than to eliminate separation, except at low Re. The results suggest that controlling the dynamic aspects of the flow has the most impact for reducing drag. This reinforces the usefulness of other studies that focus on the elimination of vortex shedding. The results show that the balance of drag components must be an important consideration when designing flow control systems and that, when done appropriately, substantial improvement can be seen in the flow characteristics.     

Critical effects of a spanwise surface wire on flow past a circular cylinder and the significance of the wire size and Reynolds number

An experimental study is conducted on flow past a circular cylinder fitted with a single spanwise wire on its surface. The work investigates the dependency of the critical wire locations on the wire size and Reynolds number, and examines the near wake and vortex shedding characteristics in an effort to advance the understanding of the critical wire effects beyond the existing literature. The Reynolds number is varied from 5000 to 30 000, and the wire diameter is varied from 2.9% to 5.9% of the cylinder diameter. All wires are larger than the boundary-layer thickness forming around a comparable smooth cylinder. Constant Temperature Anemometry and hydrogen bubble visualization are used as the flow diagnostic tools. The frequency and strength of the Karman instability are shown to vary with the wire location at any given Reynolds number nearly in an inverse fashion. For all the Reynolds numbers and wire sizes considered, two types of critical locations are shown to exist on the cylinder surface for the application of a wire. These locations are associated with the attenuation and amplification of the Karman instability, and in accord with the existing literature, are denoted as θ_c1 and θ_c2, respectively. The present work reveals that θ_c2 consists of a wide range of locations which remains unaffected from the wire size and Reynolds number, while θ_c1 is a relatively distinct location on the cylinder surface and depends on both the Reynolds number and wire size. For a given Reynolds number, increasing the wire size decreases θ_c1. For a given wire size, increasing the Reynolds number from 5000 to 15 000 increases θ_c1, and past 15 000, θ_c1 remains unaffected from the Reynolds number. When a wire is at θ_c1, even though, for the majority of the time the regular formation of Karman vortices ceases, the present data also reveals intermittent, short time periods where the regular shedding resumes.     

Two-degree-of-freedom vortex induced vibration of low-mass horizontal circular cylinder near a free surface at low Reynolds number

Two-degree-of-freedom vortex induced vibration (VIV) of a low-mass zero-damping circular cylinder horizontally placed near a free surface at Re = 100 was numerically studied with an adaptive Cartesian cut-cell/level-set method. Two Froude numbers and various normalized submergence depths were considered. The results reveal that the Froude number affects the critical normalized submergence depth and possible physical mechanisms are proposed. The in-line vibration amplitude cannot be neglected. Proximity to a free surface strengthens and suppresses the VIV for low and high Froude numbers, respectively; increases the occurrence of amplitude modulation; and in general enhances the magnitude of the time-averaged lift coefficient, which is always negative. The phase lag of the transverse displacement behind the lift coefficient jumps at some reduced velocity, which strongly depends on the Froude number and normalized submergence depth. Regular trajectories exist only in cases with a small vibration amplitude or a large normalized submergence depth. The vortex structures in any case with large transverse amplitude basically originate from the alternative vortex shedding with the negative vortex weaker than the positive one. For the higher Froude number, an extra free surface positive vortex interacts with the vortices from the cylinder surface. The vibration frequency deviates from the natural structure frequency in fluids in the large-amplitude regime.     

Low Reynolds number flow over a square cylinder with a detached flat plate

A numerical study of the alteration of a square cylinder wake using a detached downstream thin flat plate is presented. The wake is generated by a uniform flow of Reynolds number 150 based on the side length of the cylinder, D. The sensitivity of the near wake structure to the downstream position of the plate is investigated by varying the gap distance (G) along the wake centerline in the range 0 ⩽ G ⩽ 7D for a constant plate length of L = D. A critical gap distance is observed to occur at G_c ≈ 2.3D that indicates the existence of two flow regimes. Regime I is characterised by vortex formation occurring downstream of the gap while for regime II, formation occurs within the gap. By varying the plate length and gap distance, a condition is found where significant unsteady total lift reduction can occur. The root mean square lift reduction is limited by an unsteady stall process on the plate.     

Vortex shedding and aerodynamic forces on a circular cylinder in linear shear flow at subcritical Reynolds number

Vortex shedding and aerodynamic forces on a circular cylinder in a linear shear flow with its axis normal to the plane of the velocity shear profile at subcritical Reynolds number are investigated experimentally. The shear parameter β, which is based on the velocity gradient, cylinder diameter and upstream mean velocity at the center plane of the cylinder, varies from 0 to 0.27. The Strouhal number has no significant variation with the shear parameter. The time-mean base pressure increases and the fluctuating component of the base pressure decreases significantly with increasing shear parameter. Vortex shedding is suppressed by the velocity shear. Dislocation of the stagnation point takes place and this influences the pressure distribution around the cylinder together with the velocity shear. A mean lift force arises in the shear flow due to asymmetry of the pressure distribution, and it acts from the high velocity side to the low velocity side. In addition, the lift coefficient increases and the drag coefficient decreases with increasing shear parameter.     

Control of the near-wake flow around a circular cylinder with electrohydrodynamic actuators

We analysed the modifications of the near wake of a circular cylinder (2,300< Re <58,000) when the flow was perturbed steadily using an electrohydrodynamic actuator. Two electrodes flush-mounted on the surface of the cylinder were excited with DC power supplies to create a plasma sheet contouring the body. The discharge produced an electric force and changed the physical properties in the fluid layers at close vicinity to the surface. This plasma sheet diminished the base pressure, modified the size of the mean recirculation region and produced an increase in the shear stresses of the layers bounding the contour of this region.