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.