Passive control of wake flow by two small control cylinders at Reynolds number 80

Passive control of the wake behind a circular cylinder in uniform flow is studied by numerical simulation at Re_D=80. Two small control cylinders are placed symmetrically along the separating shear layers at various stream locations. In the present study, the detailed flow mechanisms that lead to a significant reduction in the fluctuating lift but maintain the shedding vortex street are clearly revealed. When the stream locations lie within 0.8≤X_C/D≤3.0, the alternate shedding vortex street remains behind the control cylinders. In this case, the symmetric standing eddies immediately behind the main cylinder and the downstream delay of the shedding vortex street are the two primary mechanisms that lead to a 70–80% reduction of the fluctuating lift on the main cylinder. Furthermore, the total drag of all the cylinders still has a maximum 5% reduction. This benefit is primarily attributed to the significant reduction of the pressure drag on the main cylinder. Within X_C/D>3.0, the symmetry of the standing eddy breaks down and the staggered vortex street is similar to that behind a single cylinder at the same Reynolds number. In the latter case, the mean pressure drag and the fluctuating lift coefficients on the main cylinder will recover to the values of a single cylinder.     

Wakes of elliptical cylinders at low Reynolds number

The wakes of elliptical cylinders are numerically investigated at a Reynolds number Re_D = 150. ANSYS-Fluent, based on the finite volume method, is used to simulate two-dimensional Newtonian fluid flow. The cylinder cross-sectional aspect ratio (AR) is varied from 0.25 to 1.0 (circular cylinder), and the angle of attack (α) of the cylinder is changed as α = 0° – 90°. With the changes in AR and α, three distinct wake patterns (patterns I, II, III) are observed, associated with different characteristics of fluid forces. Steady wake (pattern I) is characterised by two steady bubbles forming behind the cylinder, occurring at AR < 0.37 and α < 2.5°. Time-mean drag and fluctuating lift coefficients are small. Pattern II refers to Karman wake followed by steady wake (AR ≥ 0.37 – 0.67, depending on α) with the Karman street transitioning to two steady shear layers downstream. An inflection angle α_i is identified where the time-mean drag of the elliptical cylinder is identical to that of a circular cylinder. Pattern III is the Karman wake followed by secondary wake (AR ≤ 0.67, α > 52°), where the Karman street forming behind the cylinder is modified to a secondary vortex street with a low frequency. The Time-mean drag coefficient is maximum for this pattern.     

Flow-induced vibrations of two circular cylinders in tandem with shear flow at low Reynolds number

The flow-induced vibrations of two elastically mounted circular cylinders subjected to the planar shear flow in tandem arrangement are studied numerically at Re=160. A four-step semi-implicit Characteristic-based split (4-SICBS) finite element method is developed under the framework of the fractional step method to cope with the vortex-induced vibration (VIV) problem. For the computational code verification, two benchmark problems are examined in the laminar region: flow-induced vibration of an elastically mounted cylinder having two degrees of freedom and past two stationary ones in tandem arrangement. Regarding the two-cylinder VIVs in shear flow, the computation is conducted with the cylinder reduced mass M_r=2.5π and the structural damping ratio ξ=0.0. The effects of some key parameters, such as shear rate (k=0.0, 0.05, 0.1), reduced velocity (U_r=3.0–18.0) and spacing ratio (L_x/D=2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 8.0), are demonstrated. It is observed that the shear rate and reduced velocity play an important role in the VIVs of both cylinders at various center-to-center distances. Additionally, in comparison with the single cylinder case, a further study indicated that the gap flow has a significant impact on such a dynamic system, leading it to be more complex. The results show that, the performances of ‘dual-resonant’ are discovered in the shear flow. A valley is formed in transverse oscillation amplitude of DC for each spacing ratio when U_r is about 6.0. For the X–Y trajectories of the circular cylinders, figure-eight, figure-O and oval shape are obtained. Finally, the interactions between cylinders are revealed, together with the wake-induced vibration (WIV) mechanism underlying the oscillation characteristics of both cylinders exposed to shear flow. Besides, the “T+P” wake pattern is discovered herein.     

Scale-adaptive simulation of flow past wavy cylinders at a subcritical Reynolds number

The Xu & Yan scale-adaptive simulation (XYSAS) model is employed to simulate the flows past wavy cylinders at Reynolds number 8 × 10 3.This approach yields results in good agreement with experimental measurements.The mean flow field and near wake vortex structure are replicated and compared with that of a corresponding circular cylinder.The effects of wavelength ratios λ/D m from 3 to 7,together with the amplitude ratios a /D m of 0.091 and 0.25,are fully investigated.Owing to the wavy configuration,a maximum reduction of Strouhal number and root-meansquare (r.m.s) fluctuating lift coefficients are up to 50% and 92%,respectively,which means the vortex induced vibration (VIV) could be effectively alleviated at certain larger values of λ/D m and a /D m.Also,the drag coefficients can be reduced by 30%.It is found that the flow field presents contrary patterns with the increase of λ/D m.The free shear layer becomes much more stable and rolls up into mature vortex only further downstream when λ/D m falls in the range of 5-7.The amplitude ratio a /D m greatly changes the separation line,and subsequently influences the wake structures.     

Turbulent flow in a channel at a low Reynolds number

A two-component laser Doppler velocimeter with high spatial and temporal resolution was used to obtain measurements for fully developed turbulent flow of water through a channel with an aspect ratio of 12 : 1 at Re=5700 (based on the centerline velocity and the half-height of the channel). Statistical quantities that were determined are the mean streamwise velocity, the root-mean-square of the fluctuations of the streamwise and the normal velocities, the Reynolds shear stress and higher order moments. Turbulence production is calculated from these quantities. Turbulence statistics obtained from experiments are compared with results from a direct numerical simulation at the same Reynolds number. The good agreement validates a recent DNS, at Re=5700, which is approximately twice as large as used in most previous studies. Received: 12 May 1997 / Accepted: 8 April 1998     

Numerical study of turbulent plane Couette flow at low Reynolds number

A direct numerical simulation of fully developed turbulent plane Couette flow has been performed. Unsteady large-scale structures, which contributed to the instantaneous energy level, were observed. These evolving and drifting vortical structures vanished after time-averaging, and the resulting mean velocity and streamwise turbulence intensity compared favourably with recent laboratory data.     

The control of vortex shedding behind heated circular cylinders at low Reynolds numbers

We report some experiments undertaken to investigate the control of vortex shedding behind electrically heated cylinders at low Reynolds numbers owing to the heat input brought to the cylinder. In airflow, depending on the Reynolds number value, complete suppression or modification of the vortex shedding phenomenon can be achieved with increase of heat input. Experimental results suggest that this control could result of a slight change of the separation point location due to the increase of the dynamic viscosity of the fluid.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Self-sustained oscillations between two tandem cylinders at Reynolds number 1,000

This study focuses on the self-sustained oscillatory flow characteristics between two tandem circular cylinders of equal diameter placed in a uniform inflow. The Reynolds number (Re _D ), based on the cylinder diameter, was around 1,000 and all experiments were performed in a recirculating water channel. The streamwise distance between two tandem cylinders ranged within 1.5 ≤ X _c/D ≤ 7.0. Here X _c denotes the center-to-center distance between two tandem cylinders. For all experiments studied herein, quantitative velocity measurements were performed using hot-film anemometer and the LDV system. The laser sheet technique was employed for qualitative flow visualization. The wavelet transform was applied to elucidate the temporal variation and phase difference between two spectral components of the velocity signals detected in the flow field. The remarkable finding was that when two tandem circular cylinders were spaced at a distance within 4.5 ≤ X _c/D ≤ 5.5, two symmetrical unstable shear layers with a certain wavelength were observed to impinge onto the downstream cylinder. The responding frequency (f _u ), measured between these two cylinders, was much higher than the natural shedding frequency behind a single isolated cylinder at the same Re _D . This responding frequency decreased as the distance X _c/D increased. Not until X _c/D ≥ 6.0, did it recover to the natural shedding frequency behind a single isolated cylinder. Between two tandem cylinders, the Strouhal numbers (St _c = f _u X _c/U_c) maintained a nearly constant value of 3, indicating the self-sustained oscillating flow characteristics with a wavelength X _c/3. Here U _c is the convection speed of the unstable shear layers between two tandem cylinders. At Re _D = 1,000, the self-sustained oscillating characteristics between two tandem circular cylinders were proven to exhibit a sustained flow pattern, not just a sporadic phenomenon.     

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.     

DNS of viscoelastic turbulent channel flow with rectangular orifice at low Reynolds number

Direct numerical simulations of turbulent viscoelastic-fluid flow in a channel with a rectangular orifice were performed to investigate the influence of viscoelasticity on turbulence statistics and turbulent structures downstream of the orifice. The geometry considered is periodic rectangular orifices with 1:2 expansion. The constitutive equation follows the Giesekus model, valid for polymer (or surfactant) solutions, which are generally capable of reducing the turbulent frictional drag in a smooth channel. The friction Reynolds number and the Weissenberg number were set to 100 and 20-30, respectively. A drag reduction of about 20% was achieved in the viscoelastic flows. The onset Reynolds number for the transition from a symmetric to an asymmetric state was found to be shifted to higher values than that for the Newtonian flow. In the viscoelastic flow, the turbulent kinetic energy was decreased and fewer turbulent eddies were observed, as the Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices were quickly damped. Away from the orifice, quasi-streamwise vortices in the viscoelastic flow were sustained for a longer period, accompanied by energy exchange from elastic energy of the viscoelastic fluid to kinetic energy.     

Solution adaptive grids applied to low Reynolds number flow

A numerical study has been undertaken to investigate the use of a solution adaptive grid for flow around a cylinder in the laminar flow regime. The main purpose of this work is twofold. The first aim is to investigate the suitability of a grid adaptation algorithm and the reduction in mesh size that can be obtained. Secondly, the uniform asymmetric flow structures are ideal to validate the mesh structures due to mesh refinement and consequently the selected refinement criteria. The refinement variable used in this work is a product of the rate of strain and the mesh cell size, and contains two variables C_m and C_str which determine the order of each term. By altering the order of either one of these terms the refinement behaviour can be modified. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability of low Reynolds number flow with viscous heating

Summary The stability of fully developed plane Couette flow and pipe flow with viscous heating is studied at low Reynolds number for a Newtonian liquid with a temperature-dependent viscosity. The solution is obtained by a direct integration method of the eigenfunction equations, with eigenvalues located in the complex plane by means of the argument principle of complex variable theory. An instability will occur in plane Couette flow, but outside the parameter range which will be encountered in practice. There is no comparable instability in pipe flow. It can be concluded that a thermal mechanism does not cause the low Reynolds number instabilities observed in polymer processing operations.

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Zusammenfassung Für eine newtonsche Flüssigkeit mit temperaturabhängiger Viskosität wird die Stabilität der voll entwickelten ebenen Couette-Strömung und Rohrströmung bei niedrigen Reynolds-Zahlen untersucht. Die Lösung wird durch direkte Integration der Eigenwert-Gleichungen gewonnen, wobei das Argument-Prinzip der Funktionentheorie auf die in der komplexen Ebene gelegenen Eigenwerte angewandt wird. In der ebenen Couette-Strömung wird eine Instabilität gefunden, jedoch außerhalb des in der Praxis realisierten Parameter-Bereichs. In der Rohrströmung gibt es dagegen keine vergleichbare Instabilität. Man kommt zu dem Schluß, daß thermische Mechanismen nicht für die in Polymer-Verarbeitungsprozessen beobachteten bei niedrigen Reynolds-Zahlen auftretenden Instabilitäten verantwortlich gemacht werden können.

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With 6 figures and 1 table     

Dynamics of nanofibres conveyed by low Reynolds number flow in a microchannel

In this paper we aim to create an experimental and numerical model of nano and micro filaments suspended in a confined Poiseuille flow. The experimental data obtained for short nanofibres will help to elucidate fundamental questions concerning mobility and deformation of biological macromolecules due to hydrodynamic stresses from the surrounding fluid motion. Nanofibres used in the experiments are obtained by electrospinning polymer solutions. Their typical dimensions are 100–1000 μm (length) and 0.1–1 μm (diameter). The nanofibre dynamics is followed experimentally under a fluorescence microscope. A precise multipole expansion method of solving the Stokes equations, and its numerical implementation are used to construct a bead-spring model of a filament moving in a Poiseuille flow between two infinite parallel walls. Simulations show typical behaviour of elongated macromolecules. Depending on the parameters, folding and unfolding sequences of a flexible filament are observed, or a rotational and translation motion of a shape-preserving filament. An important result of our experiments is that nanofibres do not significantly change their shape while interacting with a micro-flow. It appeared that their rotational motion is better reproduced by the shape-preserving Stokesian bead model with all pairs of beads connected by springs, omitting explicit bending forces.     

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.     

Cylinder-wall interference effects on finite-length wavy cylinders at subcritical Reynolds number flows

An experimental study was conducted on aspect-ratio of six finite-length wavy cylinders immersed within a Re _D = 2,700 free-stream. Wavelengths of 2 and 4 diameters, as well as wave amplitude of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 diameters were used for a comprehensive investigation. Time-resolved particle-image velocimetry measurements and proper orthogonal decomposition analyses show that for the present large wavelength wavy cylinders, vortex-shedding behaviour of high aspect-ratio wavy cylinders observed in past studies can be altered through variations in the aspect-ratio, exact geometric node and saddle locations, as well as the presence of end-walls. This is due to the persistent formation of recirculating regions close to the end-walls under certain wavy cylinder configurations, which affect the distributions of spanwise flows and vortex formation lengths. Vortex-shedding behaviour of smaller-wavelength wavy cylinders has also been observed to be considerably less sensitive to variations in the physical configurations, due to the formation of multiple streamwise vortices at the saddles. The presence of these coherent streamwise vortices is postulated to play a key role in significantly reducing flow-altering effects associated with the end-walls.     

Effect of gravity on axial development of bubbly flow at low liquid Reynolds number

In view of the great importance of two geometrical parameters such as void fraction and interfacial area concentration to the accurate two-phase flow analysis at microgravity conditions, axial developments of flow parameters such as void fraction, interfacial area concentration, bubble Sauter mean diameter, and bubble number density were measured in bubbly flow at microgravity and low liquid Reynolds number conditions where the gravity effect on the flow parameters were pronounced. A total of seven data sets were acquired in the flow range of the void fraction from 1.01% to 3.36% and the liquid Reynolds number from 1,400 to 4,750. The measurements were also performed in the similar flow range at normal gravity conditions. The transport mechanisms of the flow parameters are discussed in detail based on the data measured at normal and microgravity conditions, and the drift-flux model developed at microgravity conditions are compared with the measured data.An erratum to this article can be found at