Identification of flow regimes around two staggered square cylinders by a numerical study

The flow over two square cylinders in staggered arrangement is simulated numerically at a fixed Reynolds number (\(Re =150\)) for different gap spacing between cylinders from 0.1 to 6 times a cylinder side to understand the flow structures. The non-inclined square cylinders are located on a line with a staggered angle of \(45^{\circ }\) to the oncoming velocity vector. All numerical simulations are carried out with a finite-volume code based on a collocated grid arrangement. The effects of vortex shedding on the various features of the flow field are numerically visualized using different flow contours such as \(\lambda _{2}\) criterion, vorticity, pressure and magnitudes of velocity to distinguish the distinctive flow patterns. By changing the gap spacing between cylinders, five different flow regimes are identified and classified as single body, periodic gap flow, aperiodic, modulated periodic and synchronized vortex shedding regimes. This study revealed that the observed multiple frequencies in global forces of the downstream cylinder in the modulated periodic regime are more properly associated with differences in vortex shedding frequencies of individual cylinders than individual shear layers reported in some previous works; particularly, both shear layers from the downstream cylinder often shed vortices at the same multiple frequencies. The maximum Strouhal number for the upstream cylinder is also identified at \({G}^{*}=1\) for aperiodic flow pattern. Furthermore, for most cases studied, the downstream cylinder experiences larger drag force than the upstream cylinder.     

Numerical investigation of mixed convection heat transfer from two isothermal circular cylinders in tandem arrangement: buoyancy,spacing ratio,and confinement effects

This paper presents a two-dimensional numerical study for mixed convection in a laminar cross-flow with a pair of stationary equal-sized isothermal cylinders in tandem arrangement confined in a channel. The governing equations are solved using the control volume method on a nonuniform orthogonal Cartesian grid, and the immersed boundary method is employed to identify the cylinders placed in the flow field. The numerical scheme is first validated against standard cases of symmetrically confined isothermal circular cylinders in plane channels, and grid convergence tests were also examined. The objective of the present study was to investigate the influence of buoyancy and the blockage ratio constraint on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of the immersed cylinder array. Using a fixed Reynolds number based on cylinder diameter of \(Re_{D} = 200\), a fixed value of the Prandtl number of \(Pr = 7\), and a blockage ratio of \(D/H = 0.2\), all possible flow regimes are considered by setting the longitudinal spacing ratio (\(\sigma = L/D\)) between the cylinder axes to 2, 3, and 5 for values of the buoyancy parameter (Richardson number) in the range \(-1\le Ri\le 4\). The interference effects and complex flow features are presented in the form of mean and instantaneous velocity, vorticity, and temperature distributions. The results demonstrate how the buoyancy, spacing ratio, and wall confinement affect the wake structure and vortex dynamics. In addition, local and average heat transfer characteristics of both cylinders are comprehensively presented for a wide range in the parametric space.     

A numerical investigation of the flow over a pair of identical square cylinders in a tandem arrangement

This paper describes a numerical study of the two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional unsteady flow over two square cylinders arranged in an in‐line configuration for Reynolds numbers from 40 to 1000 and a gap spacing of 4D, where D is the cross‐sectional dimension of the cylinders. The effect of the cylinder spacing, in the range G = 0.3D to 12D, was also studied for selected Reynolds numbers, that is, Re = 130, 150 and 500. An incompressible finite volume code with a collocated grid arrangement was employed to carry out the flow simulations. Instantaneous and time‐averaged and spanwise‐averaged vorticity, pressure, and streamlines are computed and compared for different Reynolds numbers and gap spacings. The time averaged global quantities such as the Strouhal number, the mean and the RMS values of the drag force, the base suction pressure, the lift force and the pressure coefficient are also calculated and compared with the results of a single cylinder. Three major regimes are distinguished according to the normalized gap spacing between cylinders, that is, the single slender‐body regime (G < 0.5), the reattach regime (G < 4) and co‐shedding or binary vortex regime (G ≥4). Hysteresis with different vortex patterns is observed in a certain range of the gap spacings and also for the onset of the vortex shedding. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental investigation of jets from rectangular six-lobed and round orifices at very low Reynolds number

This article presents an experimental study conducted on a six-lobed rectangular jet at a very low Reynolds number of 800. The near-exit flow dynamics is compared to the reference counterpart circular jet with same initial conditions. Flow dynamics is analyzed using time-resolved flow-visualizations, hot-wire anemometry and laser Doppler velocimetry. In the round jet, flow motion is dominated by large primary Kelvin–Helmholtz (K–H) structures. In the six-lobed rectangular jet, the K–H vortices are very thin compared to the large secondary vortices generated by the high shear at the lobed nozzle lip. The inspection of mean-velocity profiles and streamwise evolutions of the spreading rates in the major and the minor planes of the lobed jet confirm the absence of the switching-over phenomenon not observed on flow images. The streamwise structures that develop in orifice troughs render the volumetric flow rate significantly higher than that of the reference circular jet. Comparison of the obtained results to available data of the literature of similar rectangular six-lobed jets investigated at very high Reynolds numbers reinforces the notion that the three-dimensional flowfields at very low and very high Reynolds numbers are similar if the geometry of the lobed nozzle is conserved. However, important variations in flow dynamics might occur if one or several geometric parameters of the lobed nozzle are modified.     

Forced‐convection heat transfer from tandem square cylinders in cross flow at low Reynolds numbers

This paper presents the results of a numerical study on the flow characteristics and heat transfer over two equal square cylinders in a tandem arrangement. Spacing between the cylinders is five widths of the cylinder and the Reynolds number ranges from 1 to 200, Pr=0.71. Both steady and unsteady incompressible laminar flow in the 2D regime are performed with a finite volume code based on the SIMPLEC algorithm and non‐staggered grid. A study of the effects of spatial resolution and blockage on the results is provided. In this study, the instantaneous and mean streamlines, vorticity and isotherm patterns for different Reynolds numbers are presented and discussed. In addition, the global quantities such as pressure and viscous drag coefficients, RMS lift and drag coefficients, recirculation length, Strouhal number and Nusselt number are determined and discussed for various Reynolds numbers. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Role of the shear layer instability in the near wake behavior of two side-by-side circular cylinders

Wakes, and their interaction behind two parallel cylinders lying in a plane perpendicular to the flow, have been investigated experimentally in the sub-critical Reynolds number regime. The experiments were performed in a water channel using laser Doppler velocimetry. The gap between the two cylinders was less than the cylinder diameter, a geometry referred to as strong interaction configuration. In this case the blockage is strong and a gap-jet appears between the cylinders. Two flow regimes of the near wake region have been identified: one below a critical Reynolds number Re _c ]1000;1700[, where the gap jet is stably deflected to one side and the double near-wake becomes asymmetric; the other, above Re _c, where the gap-jet deflection is unstable and a random flopping phenomenon takes place. When Re<Re _c, two different Strouhal numbers are identified, related to the Kármán vortex shedding behind each cylinder. When Re>Re _c, a third frequency appears in the near wake, related to the development of Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices in the separated shear layer of the cylinders [Prasad A, Williamson CHK (1997) J Fluid Mech 333:375]. The observed flopping behavior is attributed to the birth of these Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities and their intermittent nature. Further downstream, beyond about five cylinder diameters, the random flopping flow phenomena disappear while a slightly asymmetric single wake persists. It is characterized by a Strouhal number St=0.13, a value that one would normally measure behind a single cylinder of twice its diameter.     

Unsteady mixed convection heat transfer from tandem square cylinders in cross flow at low Reynolds numbers

A two-dimensional numerical study is carried out to understand the influence of cross buoyancy on the vortex shedding processes behind two equal isothermal square cylinders placed in a tandem arrangement at low Reynolds numbers. The spacing between the cylinders is fixed with five widths of the cylinder dimension. The flow is considered in an unbounded medium, however, fictitious confining boundaries are chosen to make the problem computationally feasible. Numerical calculations are performed by using a finite volume method based on the PISO algorithm in a collocated grid system. The range of Reynolds number is chosen to be 50–150. The flow is unsteady laminar and two-dimensional in this Reynolds number range. The mixed convection effect is studied for Richardson number range of 0–2 and the Prandtl number is chosen constant as 0.71. The effect of superimposed thermal buoyancy on flow and isotherm patterns are presented and discussed. The global flow and heat transfer quantities such as overall drag and lift coefficients, local and surface average Nusselt numbers and Strouhal number are calculated and discussed for various Reynolds and Richardson numbers.     

Finite element analysis of two- and three-dimensional flows around square columns in tandem arrangement

Two- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) finite element analyses for flow around two square columns in tandem arrangement were performed with various column spacings and Reynolds numbers. The computed values were compared with the wind-tunnel results in terms of the aerodynamic characteristics of the leeward column. In most 2D computations, strong vortices were formed behind the windward column, irrespective of widely changed Reynolds numbers. This was different from the experimental phenomena of equivalent spacing, so that the computed time-averaged pressure coefficients were not identical to the experimental values except when the distance between the two columns was adequately wide or narrow. On the other hand, in 3D computation, distinct differences in flow structures behind the column were observed between Reynolds numbers of 10³ and 10⁴ and the pressure coefficient in the 3D analysis with Re=10⁴ agreed well with the experimental value. Thus, the effectiveness of 3D computations and Reynolds number effects on the flow around two square columns have been confirmed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vortex shedding and acoustic resonance of single and tandem finned cylinders

The effect of fins on vortex shedding and acoustic resonance is investigated for isolated and two tandem cylinders exposed to cross-flow in a rectangular duct. Three spacing ratios between the tandem cylinders (S/D_e=1.5, 2 and 3) are tested for a Reynolds number range from 1.6×10⁴ to 1.1×10⁵. Measurements of sound pressure as well as mean and fluctuating velocities are performed for bare and finned cylinders with three different fin densities. The effect of fins on the sound pressure generated before the onset of acoustic resonance as well as during the pre-coincidence and coincidence resonance is found to be rather complex and depends on the spacing ratio between cylinders, the fin density and the nature of the flow-sound interaction mechanism.For isolated cylinders, the fins reduce the strength of vortex shedding only slightly, but strongly attenuate the radiated sound before and during the occurrence of acoustic resonance. This suggests that the influence of the fins on correlation length is stronger than on velocity fluctuations. In contrast to isolated cylinders, the fins in the tandem cylinder case enhance the vortex shedding process at off-resonant conditions, except for the large spacing case which exhibits a reversed effect at high Reynolds numbers. Regarding the acoustic resonance of the tandem cylinders, the fins promote the onset of the coincidence resonance, but increasing the fin density drastically weakens the intensity of this resonance. The fins are also found to suppress the pre-coincidence resonance for the tandem cylinders with small spacing ratios (S/D_e=1.5, 2 and 2), but for the largest spacing case (S/D_e=3), they are found to have minor effects on the sound pressure and the lock-in range of the pre-coincidence resonance.     

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.     

Velocity field and parametric analysis of a subsonic,medium-Reynolds number cavity flow

Cavity flows are a class of flows bounded by material structures, where a recirculation region is present, and they are found in many practical applications. In the present study, the interaction between a boundary layer and an open parallelepipedic cavity develops a Kelvin–Helmholtz-like instability coupled with the cavity recirculation. PIV measurements of the flow are carried out in two orthogonal planes inside the cavity, for different aspect ratios, incompressible flow conditions, and Reynolds numbers in the range 1,900–12,000. Mean velocity and second-order moments of velocity fluctuations reveal the flow morphology. For particular conditions, centrifugal instabilities appear that are induced by flow curvature due to wall confinement. The use of an identification criterion indicates the presence of pairs of counter-rotating vortices winded around the recirculation. A parametric analysis is conducted, and the inviscid Rayleigh discriminant provides the potentially unstable flow regions inside the cavity. Finally, a stability parameter considering the ratio between centrifugal destabilizing effects and stabilizing viscous effects is carried out and gives thresholds for the emergence of the centrifugal instability. The study draws to an end with a comparison with a well-documented lid-driven cavity flow.     

Hydraulic resistance of rough channels with the flow of an incompressible current-conducting liquid in the presence of a constant transverse magnetic field

The article discusses new results of an investigation of the hydraulic resistance of channels with artificial roughness. On the basis of the experimental data, a conclusion is drawn with respect to the insignificant role of the forces of inertia in comparison with other forces under laminar flow conditions. An analogy is brought out between Hartmann flow around elements of the roughness and the flow of a free MHD stream around bodies, for cases where the height of the elements of the roughness is much greater than the thickness of the gradient layer 〈k〉?H^?1. This opens up additional possibilities for studying MHD flow around bodies with large Reynolds and Hartmann numbers. Dependences are given for determining the resistance coefficient. It is shown that, in a turbulent flow zone, for a majority of rough channels, the experimental data on the resistance coefficient are correlated satisfactorily in the form of a linear dependence on the Stuart number.     

Control of a three-dimensional turbulent shear layer by means of oblique vortices

The effect of local forcing on the separated, three-dimensional shear layer downstream of a backward-facing step is investigated by means of large-eddy simulation for a Reynolds number based on the step height of 10,700. The step edge is either oriented normal to the approaching turbulent boundary layer or swept at an angle of \(40^\circ \). Oblique vortices with different orientation and spacing are generated by wavelike suction and blowing of fluid through an edge parallel slot. The vortices exhibit a complex three-dimensional structure, but they can be characterized by a wavevector in a horizontal section plane. In order to determine the step-normal component of the wavevector, a method is developed based on phase averages. The dependence of the wavevector on the forcing parameters can be described in terms of a dispersion relation, the structure of which indicates that the disturbances are mainly convected through the fluid. The introduced vortices reduce the size of the recirculation region by up to 38%. In both the planar and the swept case, the most efficient of the studied forcings consists of vortices which propagate in a direction that deviates by more than \(50^\circ \) from the step normal. These vortices exhibit a spacing in the order of 2.5 step heights. The upstream shift of the reattachment line can be explained by increased mixing and momentum transport inside the shear layer which is reflected in high levels of the Reynolds shear stress \(-\rho \overline{u'v'}\). The position of the maximum of the coherent shear stress is found to depend linearly on the wavelength, similar to two-dimensional free shear layers.     

Experimental study of the velocity field in a vortex-flow heat exchanger with isothermal conditions

The velocity field in a vortex heat cell was investigated experimentally using laser Doppler velocimetry for a wide range of flow conditions. Experimental results point out the three dimensionality of the exchanger's flow, which is composed into a main vortex flow developing along the side walls. The strength of the flow increases up to a limiting value reached for a Reynolds number ranging between 15,000 and 30,000; a secondary flow, caused by interaction between centrifugal and inertial forces, extends perpendicularly to the main flow and remains Reynolds number dependent. It is composed of multiple counter-rotating structures occurring at the exchanger periphery with low inlet Reynolds numbers, thus reducing the rate of centripetal momentum transfer. With increasing inlet Reynolds number, the secondary flow extends across the whole exchanger radius, thus increasing the rate of mixing of the treated fluid. The appearance of so-called Taylor–Görtler vortices tends to reduce the z- and r-axis vorticity transfer.     

Transition from vortex to wall driven turbulence production in the Taylor–Couette system with a rotating inner cylinder

Axisymmetrically stable turbulent Taylor vortices between two concentric cylinders are studied with respect to the transition from vortex to wall driven turbulent production. The outer cylinder is stationary and the inner cylinder rotates. A low Reynolds number turbulence model using the k‐ω formulation, facilitates an analysis of the velocity gradients in the Taylor–Couette flow. For a fixed inner radius, three radius ratios 0.734, 0.941 and 0.985 are employed to identify the Reynolds number range at which this transition occurs. At relatively low Reynolds numbers, turbulent production is shown to be dominated by the outflowing boundary of the Taylor vortex. As the Reynolds number increases, shear driven turbulence (due to the rotating cylinder) becomes the dominating factor. For relatively small gaps turbulent flow is shown to occur at Taylor numbers lower than previously reported. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of self-issuing jets along the span on the near-wake of a square cylinder

The study herein focuses on the vortex shedding characteristics and near-wake vorticity patterns of a square cylinder having self-issuing jets through holes along its span. Three different values of spacing between the consecutive holes λ with respect to the cylinder diameter D, i.e., λ/D = 1.5, 3 and 4 are studied experimentally via Digital Particle Image Velocimetry for the Reynolds number range extending from 200 to 1,000. It has been observed that the three-dimensionality of the wake flow depends on the spacing between the holes and Re number. For sufficiently low Reynolds numbers, the jet flows issuing from the holes yield a non-uniform distribution of mean flow characteristics like the shedding frequency and the formation length of vortices along the span of the cylinder when the spacing between jets along centerline is close to wavelength of the naturally existing three-dimensional wake instability. Additionally, for Re number up to 500, the self-issuing jets emanating from the holes show an indirect interaction with shear layers originating from upper and lower separation lines of the cylinder. However, for higher Re numbers of 750 and 1,000, they directly interact with and modify the vortices forming from the cylinder.     

Structure of near wall turbulence downstream of a wall mounted protrusion: an interesting Reynolds stress suppression phenomena

A local suppression in the generation of near wall Reynolds stress is achieved by modifying the buffer region and sublayer (y ⁺ <30) of a turbulent pipe flow with a 16.4 wall unit high wall mounted protrusion. Multi-component, multi-point, time resolved laser Doppler velocimetry measurements are made in the undisturbed and modified ARL/PSU glycerin tunnel pipe flow at a Reynolds number of approximately 10000. A downstream converging flow field is produced by the divergence of the approaching mean flow around the protrusion. A pair of counter-rotating vortices, 15 wall units in diameter with common flow down, are generated by the protrusion and also contribute to the wall directed flow convergence. The convergence region is 15 wall units high and more than 100 wall units long and appears to decouple the near wall region from the outer turbulent wall layer. Locally, turbulent velocity fluctuations in the form of Reynolds stress producing events, sweeps and ejections, are retarded within this region. This results in a reduction in near wall uv Reynolds stress and local wall shear. Interestingly, the counter-rotating vortices act to increase turbulent diffusion in a manner which is uncorrelated with Reynolds stress generation.     

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.     

Diffusion flux to a distorted gas bubble at large Reynolds numbers

The diffusion flux to a distorted gas bubble situated in a uniform viscous incompressible fluid flow is determined for large Reynolds and Péclet numbers and finite Weber numbers. The bubble has the shape of an ellipsoid of revolution, oblate in the flow direction, making it possible to use the flow field derived by Moore [1] in the form of a two-term expansion with respect to the flow parameter =R^–1/2 (R is the Reynolds number; the zeroth term of the expansion corresponds to potential flow). The dependence of the diffusion flux onto the bubble surface on the Weber and Reynolds numbers is determined. The results of Winnikow [2] and Sy and Lightfoot [3] are thus generalized to the case of finite Weber numbers and a broader range of Reynolds numbers.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 4, pp. 70–76, July–August, 1976.