The wakes of cylindrical bluff bodies at low Reynolds number

Experiments on the near wake of a cylinder will be discribed in an attempt to present a coherent picture of the events encountered as the Reynolds number increases from small values up to values of a few thousand. Much work on this subject has already been done, but there are gaps in our description of these flows as well as more fundamental deficiencies in our understanding of them. The subject has been reviewed several times and most recently by Berger & Wille (1972) whose paper covers much of the ground that will be discussed again here. The present work may be regarded as built upon this latest review. I remember with gratitude many helpful discussions with the late Rudolph Wille who contributed so much to this subject. The investigation has concentrated on circular cylinders, but the wakes of bluff cylinders of different cross sectional shapes have also been observed. Bluff cylinders in general are considered in §§4 and 5, together with the effect of splitter plates on circular cylinders in §9. The experiments concern, almost exclusively, flow visualization of the wakes by means of dye washed from the bodies. The patterns of dye observed are, therefore, filament line representations of the flow leaving the separation lines on the body. It must be stressed that the dye does not make visible the vorticity bearing fluid because at low Reynolds number, vorticity diffuses considerably more rapidly than does dye. The ratio of the molecular diffusivity of momentum to that of mass of dye is of the order of 100.

2013 ◽  
Vol 736 ◽  
pp. 414-443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Ueda ◽  
T. Kida ◽  
M. Iguchi

AbstractThe long-time viscous flow about two identical rotating circular cylinders in a side-by-side arrangement is investigated using an adaptive numerical scheme based on the vortex method. The Stokes solution of the steady flow about the two-cylinder cluster produces a uniform stream in the far field, which is the so-called Jeffery’s paradox. The present work first addresses the validation of the vortex method for a low-Reynolds-number computation. The unsteady flow past an abruptly started purely rotating circular cylinder is therefore computed and compared with an exact solution to the Navier–Stokes equations. The steady state is then found to be obtained for $t\gg 1$ with ${\mathit{Re}}_{\omega } {r}^{2} \ll t$, where the characteristic length and velocity are respectively normalized with the radius ${a}_{1} $ of the circular cylinder and the circumferential velocity ${\Omega }_{1} {a}_{1} $. Then, the influence of the Reynolds number ${\mathit{Re}}_{\omega } = { a}_{1}^{2} {\Omega }_{1} / \nu $ about the two-cylinder cluster is investigated in the range $0. 125\leqslant {\mathit{Re}}_{\omega } \leqslant 40$. The convection influence forms a pair of circulations (called self-induced closed streamlines) ahead of the cylinders to alter the symmetry of the streamline whereas the low-Reynolds-number computation (${\mathit{Re}}_{\omega } = 0. 125$) reaches the steady regime in a proper inner domain. The self-induced closed streamline is formed at far field due to the boundary condition being zero at infinity. When the two-cylinder cluster is immersed in a uniform flow, which is equivalent to Jeffery’s solution, the streamline behaves like excellent Jeffery’s flow at ${\mathit{Re}}_{\omega } = 1. 25$ (although the drag force is almost zero). On the other hand, the influence of the gap spacing between the cylinders is also investigated and it is shown that there are two kinds of flow regimes including Jeffery’s flow. At a proper distance from the cylinders, the self-induced far-field velocity, which is almost equivalent to Jeffery’s solution, is successfully observed in a two-cylinder arrangement.


2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-134
Author(s):  
Huashu Dou ◽  
Shuo Zhang ◽  
Hui Yang ◽  
Toshiaki Setoguchi ◽  
Yoichi Kinoue

2017 ◽  
Vol 827 ◽  
pp. 357-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Yao ◽  
R. K. Jaiman

We present an effective reduced-order model (ROM) technique to couple an incompressible flow with a transversely vibrating bluff body in a state-space format. The ROM of the unsteady wake flow is based on the Navier–Stokes equations and is constructed by means of an eigensystem realization algorithm (ERA). We investigate the underlying mechanism of vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of a circular cylinder at low Reynolds number via linear stability analysis. To understand the frequency lock-in mechanism and self-sustained VIV phenomenon, a systematic analysis is performed by examining the eigenvalue trajectories of the ERA-based ROM for a range of reduced oscillation frequency $(F_{s})$, while maintaining fixed values of the Reynolds number ($Re$) and mass ratio ($m^{\ast }$). The effects of the Reynolds number $Re$, the mass ratio $m^{\ast }$ and the rounding of a square cylinder are examined to generalize the proposed ERA-based ROM for the VIV lock-in analysis. The considered cylinder configurations are a basic square with sharp corners, a circle and three intermediate rounded squares, which are created by varying a single rounding parameter. The results show that the two frequency lock-in regimes, the so-called resonance and flutter, only exist when certain conditions are satisfied, and the regimes have a strong dependence on the shape of the bluff body, the Reynolds number and the mass ratio. In addition, the frequency lock-in during VIV of a square cylinder is found to be dominated by the resonance regime, without any coupled-mode flutter at low Reynolds number. To further discern the influence of geometry on the VIV lock-in mechanism, we consider the smooth curve geometry of an ellipse and two sharp corner geometries of forward triangle and diamond-shaped bluff bodies. While the ellipse and diamond geometries exhibit the flutter and mixed resonance–flutter regimes, the forward triangle undergoes only the flutter-induced lock-in for $30\leqslant Re\leqslant 100$ at $m^{\ast }=10$. In the case of the forward triangle configuration, the ERA-based ROM accurately predicts the low-frequency galloping instability. We observe a kink in the amplitude response associated with 1:3 synchronization, whereby the forward triangular body oscillates at a single dominant frequency but the lift force has a frequency component at three times the body oscillation frequency. Finally, we present a stability phase diagram to summarize the VIV lock-in regimes of the five smooth-curve- and sharp-corner-based bluff bodies. These findings attempt to generalize our understanding of the VIV lock-in mechanism for bluff bodies at low Reynolds number. The proposed ERA-based ROM is found to be accurate, efficient and easy to use for the linear stability analysis of VIV, and it can have a profound impact on the development of control strategies for nonlinear vortex shedding and VIV.


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